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16--47372-3 SPO 



INDO-ARYAN 
THOUGHT AND CULTURE 



AND THEIR BEARING 



ON PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS IN INDIA 

An Argument from the Standpoint of a Native of that Country 



BY 

PRABHAKER S. SHILOTRI, M. A. 

Sometime Fellow in Political Economy at 
Columbia University 



Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the 

DEGREE OF Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty op Poutical 

Science, Columbia University, in the City of New York 



1913 

The Evening Post Job Feinting Office 

No. 156 Fulton Street 

New Yobk 



INDO-ARYAN 
THOUGHT AND CULTURE 



AND THEIR BEARING 



ON PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS IN INDIA 

An Argument from the Standpoint of a Native of that Country 



BY 



PRABHAKER S. SHILOTRI, M. A. 

Sometime Fellow in Political Economy at 
Columbia University 



Submitted in partial i'uu'illment of the requirements i'or the 

DEGREE oE Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty oe Political 

Science, Columbia University, in T'he City oe New York 



1913 

The Evening Post Job Printing Office 

No. 156 Fulton Street 

New York 






^ 



Copyright, 19 13 

BY 

PRABHAKER S. SHILOTRI, M. A. 



Tiis Uniyersijj 



In Gratitude 

to 

Those who enabled me to enjoy a 
prolonged University career 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE. 

Preface 7"i ^ 

Chapter I. Introduction 12-25 

Chapter 11. Ukimate Physical Determinants of the 

Indo- Aryan Life 26-38 

Chapter IIL Intermediate Psychological Forces — Con- 
flict between Spiritual and Economic Val- 
ues — Triumph of the Former and Forma- 
tion of the Indo-Aryan Social Mind 39-56 

Chapter IV. In the Fetters of Sacred Law and Custom 

— Powerlessness of Disintegrating Forces. 57-63 

Chapter V. Socio-Political and Economic Conse- 
quences — Beginnings of Effective Disin- 
tegration — Exploitation — Program of Re- 
construction — Methods and Means 64-77 

Bibliography 78-81 



PREFACE 

The aim of this study is not so much to bring to Hght new 
data as to interpret some commonplace facts from the history of 
Indo-Aryan culture, the full significance of which is not, in my 
judgment, properly appreciated nor made use of in dealing with 
the present day problems of India. The cause of some of India's 
most acute economic and political problems is to be found in the 
unique Indo-Aryan mental evolution, which has crystalized into 
an almost "fixed attitude" of the Indian social mind, and which 
supports some of her deep-rooted institutions. These institu- 
tions were formed long before foreigners exploited the country, 
and to the tyranny of these institutions the population still cheier- 
fully submits, almost unconsciously, I maintain, in spite of the 
"new spirit" which is doing so much today for the regeneration 
of the country. What I mean by a "fixed attitude" of the Indian 
social mind and an unconscious homage to ruinous customs even 
on the part of the most educated amongst us, I shall try to make 
clear in the course of this study. 

The lack of full appreciation of these simple facts has cre- 
ated, on the one hand, an unnecessary prejudice against an intel- 
ligent population, in consequence of which the British govern- 
ment has committed some serious administrative blunders. A 
failure, on the other hand, to reckon with these facts on the 
part of our own political and social leaders has led them into 
prisons or to the gallows. 

I cannot subscribe to the attitude of the haughty English 
civilian and the Western scholar who, with an incomplete knowl- 
edge of ethnology, maintain that the dark skinned races of India 
are degenerate products of a tropical clime, unfit for pros- 
perous economic institutions and incapable of constitutional self- 
government. Such an attitude is based upon the innate preju- 
dice which the European has against the dark skinned races and 
tropical climes. It is based upon superficial knowledge of the 
stamina of a population acclimatized to hot regions, well quali- 
fied to exploit the natural resources of such places, and yet held 
in check by predominantly psychological factors. Such racial 
prejudice once extended to all Asiatic races, but Japan 
having redeemed the Mongolian race from the stigma, the 
calumny is now directed at India alone. 



8 

I believe that whatever may have been the influence of the 
geographic and racial factors in the past, in the problems of 
present reconstruction psychological and institutional factors 
predominate. 

Nor can I subscribe to the enthusiastic claims of some of 
our leaders that they are the honorable descendants of the 
noble Aryan race — those who are most zealous in claiming such 
an affinity have in fact sometimes the least of that blood in them 
— representatives of a glorious civilization and in every way fit 
for Western democratic political institutions, capable of bringing 
about a quick economic regeneration of their country, but held 
in check by what they call the malignant influence of the British 
rule. While appreciating the disadvantages of a foreign rule, I 
must say that their claims are based upon illusions. In the first 
place there is hardly any element in India of the so-called pure 
Aryan blood — the entire population being a mixture of the 
Dravidian, the Mongolian and Aryan blood in all degrees, show- 
ing in its results an imperceptible gradation of color. But, 
as we shall later point out, the Indians are the better for this 
promiscuous mixture of races, and their freedom from color 
and race prejudice is one of the best economic assets for the 
future. In spite of this excellent racial composition of the 
population, well fitted, as it is, to exploit tropical economic 
resources, it is not fit today for the political goal it seeks nor 
the economic prosperity to which it aspires, because there 
has not as yet been born in that population that spirit which 
is absolutely the essential basis of a prosperous national 
life— 7a political and economic consciousness of kind. This 
racially mixed and more or less unified population of 300,000,000 
people stands hopelessly differentiated into 3,000 or more small 
and large communities of interest, called castes, speaking over 
150 languages or dialects, and having no common conscious 
political or economic interest. 

Caste again is only a comprehensive name that includes the 
thousand and one customs and rules that have been such great 
obstacles to political and economic progress in India. 

My aim is to trace the progress of the mental evolution that 
has given birth to that "fixed attitude" of the Indian social 
mind, which in turn supports a relentless tyranny of institutions. ; 
This condition has created in India some of the most difficult 
and unique problems for the people of that country. To it we 
owe the spectacle of a vigorous population, racially more or less 



mixed, yet socially differentiated; of proved intelligence for 
political and military organization, yet subject to the rule of 
a handful of foreigners having their homes in a distant land; 
a people dwelling in the midst of vast natural resources yet 
proverbially poor and suffering from chronic famines ; excelling 
in clear thinking, yet paying slavish homage to superstition 
and custom. 

In the light of these remarkable results the literary docu- 
ments of the Indo-Aryan civilization present unrivalled oppor- 
tunities for a study of socio-economic causation, and happily in 
them we find a complete recwd of this unique process of mental 
evolution. To my knowledge, no attempt has thus far been 
made to use these data for such a purpose, for which in fact 
they are most valuable, apart from their linguistic, literary and 
religious merits M^iich have been so zealously exploited. 

My main thesis is that the ^normal mental evolution of the 
Indo-Aryan stock has been largely responsible for the chaotic , 
political, social and economic conditions that we find in India as \ 
the curtain rises on her authentic political history.^ The factors 
of climatic environment and contact with the Dravidian races 
are important, I admit, but their evil influence has been over-esti- 
mated and benefits therefrom are generally overlooked. In 
my judgment, the most difficult task before the leaders of India 
today is to create forces in society that will disintegrate the 
present "fixed attitude" of the Indian social mind and enable 
them gradually to soften the rigid differences that exist between 
caste and caste, and create among the people of India a feeling 
of nationality that will be based not only upon a sense of com- 
mon political and economic interests, but also upon a consan- 
guineal consciousness of kind. This will mean that the difference 
of status between members of the so-called Aryan and the Dra- 
vidian castes will have to be gradually eliminated. That is, in 
the end we have to face the fusion of the Aryan and the Dravid- 
ian blood in India, which, it is believed, the caste system has so 
strenuously exerted itself to keep apart. Are we warranted in 
such a procedure? Yes. In the first place, if the caste system had 
as one of its missions the preservation of the purity of the 
Aryan blood, in that respect, it has been a failure, as we shall 
later point out. In the second place, the value of the Dravidian 
races in India is under-estimated. They possess many excellent 
qualities which the Aryans do not have. They are moreover a 



lO 

race by no means widely separated from the Aryans, and in 
their history prior to the coming of the Aryans into India, they 
possess excellent credentials for their admission to equal status 
with the so-called Aryan castes. 

My estimate of the Dravidian races, as the reader will notice, 
I have largely supported by Mr. Hewitt's researches. Mr. 
Hewitt had been a commissioner of Chutia Nagpur for many 
years. This district is one of the chief centres of the pure 
Dravidian population in India. Here he had, by personal con- 
tact, an opportunity to study the characteristics, qualities, tradi- 
tions, and folk lore of these people. Mr. Hewitt was so much 
impressed by the stamina of these people that he went even so 
far as to maintain that the famous Bharata kings of India were 
of Dravidian descent. Mr. Hewitt further maintains that these 
people were of Semitic origin, who had invaded India from the 
northeast and had established large centralized kingdoms. He 
says that (true to their blood affiliations) these invaders were 
great merchant kings. In my own judgment also, an attempt to 
class all the pre-Aryan black aborigines of India into one race 
is to ignore the very marked differences of physiognomy that 
exist between the members of the Kolarian and the Dravidian 
tribes. I am not personally qualified to judge of the full value of 
Mr. Hewitt's researches, but I feel that the worth of the Dra- 
vidian races and the part they have played in the formation of 
Indian history, religion and mythology have been generally under- 
valued. In order to remove any misapprehension on the part 
of the reader as to my affiliation with the Dravidian race, I 
may state here that I belong to a Maratha caste which claims to 
\ be of pure Aryan Kshatriya origin, and as such I can have no 
personal interest in emphasizing the commendable qualities of 
the Dravidian race. 

My emphasis on the evils of the "fixed attitude" of the In- 
dian social mind and the stationary institutions of the country 
should not be misconstrued as implying that I advocate a 
promiscuous mixing of castes and races or any radical change in 
the existing social order. It would not prove advantageous — 
indeed it might be actually disastrous in its result — to shock 
the cherished sentiments and prejudices of the "mob mind" be- 
fore the soil is prepared for the planting of the new seed. There 
are methods which I shall suggest by which the desired re- 
sults can be gradually obtained without arousing unnecessary 
antagonism on the part of the people. 



II 



I shall consider these pages to have fulfilled their mission 
if they go even a little toward removing some of the innate 
prejudices of my countrymen, and if they produce on the part of 
the Western nations a somewhat more sympathetic and inquiring 
attitude towards the problems and people of India. 

I wish to record here my indebtedness to my teachers in the 
Department of Economics and Sociology, whose courses it has 
been my privilege to attend, and from whose association I have 
derived much benefit. To a fellow student, Mrs. Alice S. 
Gitterman, M. A., I desire to express my sincere appreciation 
for her thorough revision of the proofs. My heaviest obligations 
are due to Professor Seager for his kind encouragement 
throughout, and to Professor Jackson, who, although I was not 
a pupil in any of his classes, made many very valuable sugges- 
tions and criticisms and gave me many evidences of his personal 
kindness. While acknowledging my indebtedness to each 
of these gentlemen I must add at the same time that they are 
to be relieved of responsibility for any particular view advanced, 
as the opinions and arguments are my own. 

New York, March, 1913. 



CHAPTER I 
Introduction 

In giving my reasons for undertaking to write on so broad a 
theme, various phases of which have been dealt with b}^ many ex- 
cellent scholars, I must say at the outset that it is the product of 
an unpremeditated plan. I had occasion to go through the 
translations of some of the leading Sanskrit texts, and while I 
obtained no appreciable results for my original purpose in 
perusing them, I came across abundant evidence to confirm me 
in some of the views which I had been forming concerning the 
problems and people of India on the basis of my acquaintance 
with the actual conditions in that country and an immediate 
knowledge of the Indian psychology. 

A quest for the root of the socio-economic problems of In- 
dia is of most vital interest to us to-day, and I thought that an 
attempt on my part to offer even a slight clue towards their 
solution might be appreciated by my countrymen as a greater 
service than even very fruitful results in any other branch of 
research. 

I Something is radically wrong in a country where hundreds 
of millions of people in a perpetual low standard of life succumb 
to a condition of chronic poverty, restless political discontent, 
and misery. Superficial analyses have simply resulted in rem- 
edial measures — while the fundamental conditions remain prac- 
tically unchanged. ; To put the blame on the tropical clime or 
the racial qualities of the population and declare the problem as 
insoluble and hopeless, is deliberately to shut our eyes to the 
history of the country and the native stamina of its people. It 
is a good working hypothesis for the British Government and 
for indifferent Westerners, but the people of India cannot be 
satisfied with such a summary dismissal of the case and must 
make an independent effort to solve the problem. 

The gravity of a problem, however, or an interest in its so- 
lution, is no license for anyone to undertake its treatment. 

I fully realize that many able scholars have worked on it, 
and after devoting years of research and reflection, confessed 
their inability to say a final word on the subject. Yet India is 
today passing through a period of mental transition and prepar- 



13 

ing for a mental crisis. The mind of the Indian youth now 
craves a consistent theory that will explain to him his situation 
and offer him a clue towards its solution. Just at such a period 
it is necessary that the intellectual leadership of that coimtry 
shall fall into sane hands. Unfortunately, many Western and 
Eastern men of note and scholars of excellent repute are pro- 
mulgating some not only erroneous but positively dangerous 
doctrines as to the potentialities and fate of India and her peo- 
ple. Victims to these doctrines, many of our excellent young 
men have gone to the gallows and others have fallen into a 
mood of pessimism, believing that things must remain as they 
are. 

First : There is a class of men who ascribe famines and all 
other evils in India to what they call the malignant influence of 
the British rule. They insist that conditions will remain pretty 
much as they are so long as that obstacle remains in the way. 

Second : There are those who maintain that tropical peoples 
and dark skinned races are incapable of maintaining a constitu- 
tional self-government and sound economic institutions, that is, 
in plain words : people of dark skin are destined to a dark fate 
— one of perpetual slavery to their masters from temperate 
zones. A certain scholar who has travelled all over the world 
and is reputed an authority on Eastern questions, in discoursing 
to his classes upon colonies and dependencies, showed for 
nearly an hour lantern slides displaying the half-fed and half- 
clothed inhabitants of India and the Malay Peninsula, and asked 
if such filthy-looking creatures could be worthy of the self-gov- 
ernment, which their leaders seek for them. These are by no 
means false representations, but we shall later point out the 
dangers of generalizations about peoples and civilizations based 
upon such superficial observations. 

Third : There is the pet doctrine of a defective ethnology 
which insists that race hybridization produces degenerate prog- 
eny, and maintains that the barrier between separate races 
must remain as a perpetual condition. In this connection it 
should be remembered that the major part of the population of 
India represents just such a hybrid product. 

Fourth: We are told that the British government is doing 
much benevolent work in India, and that the people of that 
country are ungrateful malcontents and do not know what is 



14 

good for them, and cannot appreciate it when they get it. The 
people of India, it is maintained, have no grovmds for complaint. 
The British government is the best government and the most effi- 
cient ; as thoug'h the best ever must inevitably be the best forever. 
A scholar (and I may say he has his supporters) who has spent 
a considerable part of his life in studying the problems of India, 
points out that the people of that country today are much hap- 
pier and economically more prosperous than they were under 
their native Rajas, who robbed and looted them under the pre- 
text of collecting taxes. We shall later point out why this 
statement, which is partly incorrect, fails to prove the superior 
merit of the present administration as a desirable perpetual 
condition. 

Since such are the attitudes toward the problems of India 
even of those from whom we should expect more balanced 
views, we cannot blame the zealous apostles of Christ who 
offer the gospel as a panacea for all the evils in India. 

Under the seducing attractiveness of the four mischief- 
making doctrines above enumerated, our young men have been 
led into rash attempts or into the pessimistic belief that the 
tropic and sub-tropic regions are the graves of human energy 
and progress. We warn them to guard against such fascina- 
ting or pessimistic doctrines, and, keeping sober aims in view, 
to work steadily for the reconstruction of the country, which 
has the best of prospects in the future. 

False pride, narrow-minded prejudices, and a spirit of re- 
venge and ridicule are the results of a superficial study of the 
isolated chapters of a past period of human civilization. It is 
little wonder that an Englishman who reads of the Black Hole 
of Calcutta and the massacre of women and children by friends 
of Nanasahib, or a Westerner who only knows that the people 
of India are dark skinned, should come to that country with a 
contempt for the people, or that others, reading only of the phil- 
osophical doctrines of the people of India, should expect to find 
in all the Indians great philosophers. Neither is it surprising 
that an Indian youth, reading isolated chapters of Warren 
Hastings' administration, should be imbued with a spirit of re- 
venge against Englishmen, irrespective of their motives and 
agiljions. 
f"^ Unfortunately, it is a defective system of education in which 
t we are drilled at home. It trains our memory and teaches us 



15 

to perform some intellectual feats, but creates in us no inquiring 
and unbiased attitude towards our social, political, and economic 
problems. This neglect of the teaching of social sciences is 
largely responsible for the unsatisfactory intellectual leadership / 
that we find in India today. 

And as we leave our shores seeking for a better understand- 
ing of our problems and a more definite scheme for their solu- 
tion, our ears are stunned with the noise about the clement spirit 
and the high standard of honor of the English. Here we are 
given an opposite swing to the pendulum of our theories. We 
are taught some perverted ethnological doctrines as to the dan- 
gers of race mixture and the advantages of race prejudices — 
doctrines based upon insufficient data for such sweeping gener- 
alizations as to the destiny of mankind. Yet I know of many 
victims of such mischief-making doctrines amongst us who ad- 
vocate an accentuation of caste spirit, and others who have come 
to despair of the prospects of their country and the fate of their 
kindred. 

It is to prevent the minds of our simple and inquiring youths 
from being polluted by such suicidal views and to remove at 
least some of the grosser prejudices of Western scholars as re- 
gards the peoples and problems of India, that I have undertaken 
such an ambitious task, with some diffidence as to my ability to 
discharge it successfully. I hope, however, that my presumption 
may be pardoned if I do not extend my ambition beyond merely 
presenting a point of view. 

In the course of this essay I shall try to show to what extent 
the tropical climate of India brought about the degeneration of 
the Indo- Aryan stock ; point out the worth of the Pre- Aryan 
races and civilization of India ; give my reasons for declaring the 
present racially mixed composition of the population of India 
to be an economic advantage to the country ; show the value of 
absence of color prejudice to the future regeneration of that 
country, and why I consider it would be a pity if from the con- 
tact with civilized Western nations we should breed in ourselves 
a contempt for the dark skin and the so-called lower races ; that 
the problem of India hmges on the possibility of the disintegra- 
tion of the present attitude of the Indian social mind, and of 
creating in its stead another social mind, possessing political 
and economic "consciousness of kind," — that is to say, that it is 
a problem of psychogenesis primarily, whatever may have been 



i6 

the influence of geographical and racial factors in times gone by. 
I shall point out the special advantages accruing from the Brit- 
ish government in the direction of this psycho-disintegration 
which we so much desire, and also explain why in my judgment 
this government may perhaps stand as a serious obstacle to the 
further progress of a healthy growth of national economic life 
in India. My main task, however, will be to trace the growth 
of this peculiar attitude of the Indo-Aryan social mind which 
supports the apparent contrast and contradistinctions, the ex- 
istence of the sublime and the ridiculous side by side in the life 
of the people of India. 

Finally, I shall try to point out to my countrymen that the 
situation is such that we need be neither pessimistic nor over-op- 
timistic as to the prospects of our country and the fate of our 
people, and that every Indian youth, if he cares to, can become 
an active force in building up his nation and serve his country 
even without sacrificing his business or domestic interests. 

Very few people either in or out of India, except those who 
happen to have devoted special attention to the problem, have a 
clear idea of the complicated racial composition or the peculiar 
mental constitution of the population of that country. To the 
Westerners India has been a land of mystery, curiosity, con- 
tempt, or admiration, according to the particular phase of its 
civilization they happen to have studied or heard of. To the 
orthodox Indian mind she is the only holy spot on the face of 
the earth, possessing the only religion that gives salvation. Re- 
gions and peoples outside it are impious barbarians. If we 
take some of the most commonplace beliefs and facts about 
India and her people, we find in them a deep meaning for our 
purpose — for we shall soon realize that in an attempt to furnish 
a consistent explanation of these we are confronted with a 
laborious task. 

What are some of these facts, then, that give us an inkling of 
her problems? The popular mind readily catches and stores 
whatever is generally most peculiar and ofifers vivid contrasts 
about a country and her people, and yet these very commonplace 
popular beliefs reveal on genetic analysis some important truths. 
The popular mind credits or discredits India with many con- 
trasts, some of which are as follows : it is a country of wisdom 
and intellect, of whose people much has been heard, and yet we 
are told that they are heathens and victims of gross superstition, 



17 

practising idolatry and fetish worship. And the people claim 
the noble Aryans, a white Caucasian race, for their ancestors, 
yet the majority amongst them appears a half-clad, half-fed 
population, not at first glance differing much from the colored 
population of the United States, and in fact containing many 
racial and cultural elements even inferior to the lowest of 
negroes. Amidst the glittering glory of wealth and courtly pomp 
of thousands of native princes, who wear costly jewels and 
make such lovely scenery at Durbars, millions are held in the 
jaws of famine and have to be supported by contributions to 
the missionary funds. There is a fundamental psychological 
unity that supports the heterogeneous structure of the caste 
system. There are hundreds of millions of people representing 
strong and vigorous race elements, yet held in subjugation by a 
handful of foreigners. 

These are some of the facts of commonplace knowledge 
which seem inexplicable to the Western mind. Many times 
during my stay in America have I been asked by sympathetic 
friends of India for an explanation of such astonishing anoma- 
lies. These contrasts and contradictions are facts, and an at- 
tempt on the part of some of our patriots either to deny or to 
defend them has led them into a ridiculous situation. I shall 
make no attempt either at refutation or removal of these beliefs, 
but hope to show that in a genetic study of these phenomena 
we find an explanation that renders these contrasts less aston- 
ishing and these apparent incompatabilities less bafifling. 

The people who are credited by some as being the earliest 
inhabitants of India are the Kols.^ Their racial affinity is 
not well known. They are believed to belong to a branch of the 
Australian negroid type. They are jet black in color, have wooly 
hair and are animistic in belief. These people are said to have 
been the first in the world to take to a settled life. They 
built villages on their hunting grounds and made beginnings 
in agriculture. Their number must have been very small, 
perhaps only a few millions. As these people were de- 
veloping their tribal politics, another race, supposedly of 
Turanian origin, came from the northeast, conquered and 

^J. F. Hewitt, Primitive Traditional History, Vol. I, p. 92 et seq. 
For an opposite view see Risley's People of India, p. 43 et seq. Mr. 
Risley places the entire aboriginal population of India into one main 
group which he calls Dravidian and gives them a negroid description of 
physique. 



i8 

enslaved these people and established their supremacy.^ These 
people are called the Dravidians — the true backbone of the 
population of India. They are of reddish black color, have 
smooth, straight hair, pointed noses, and in general physiog- 
nomy greatly resemble the so-called white races of Europe — 
except that their color is dark. It is believed that these were a 
brave and war-like people, possessed of great genius for political 
organization, and a native instinct for industrial development. 
They had established large kingdoms in India and had made con- 
siderable progress in agriculture, industry and commerce.'^ Their 
number must have been very large, as they form the major* part 
of the present population of India and their blood has liltered 
through almost all the racial stocks that later arrived in the coun- 
try. From the standpoint of acclimatization and economic effi- 
ciency this is perhaps the best racial stock in India today.** 

After them came the so-called Indo-Aryans, the most power- 
ful and intelligent of all the races that went to India for perma- 
nent colonization. They were a Caucasian white race, believed 
to be descended from the same forefathers as those of the Ger- 
manic tribes of Europe and the Gauls of Scotland. It is imma- 
terial whether or not we admit the close racial affinity of these 
people to the races of Western Europe; it is sufficient for our 
purpose that they were the most vigorous and intelligent ele- 
ment that entered the country, and by their unique civilization, 
which has now become known world-wide amongst scholars, pro- 
foundly affected the entire course of future events in India and 
decided her political and economic fate. Yet these people were 
also only a few millions in number. It is they who started the 
caste system in India, originally to preserve and perpetuate the 
purity of their blood as well as the sanctity of their spiritual status 
from the surrounding black ocean of irreligious people in which 
they found themselves situate. But their most rigorous caste sys- 

"Ibid., p. 235 ct seq. Mr. Hewitt believes these Turanian people 
are of Semitic origin. See also, his Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times, 
p. 6i et seq. 

^Hewitt's Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times, p. 105. Also Prim. 
Trad. His., pp. 885 et seq. Also see reference in note above. 

*See statistics of castes given in Mr. Risley's Ethnological Appendix 
to Vol. I of the Census of India for 1901, and compare the numerical 
strength of the dominantly Aryan and the dominantly Dravidian castes. 

**Whatever may be the difference of opinion as to the racial affinity 
of the Dravidians, Mr. Risley, Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Elphinstone all 
agree as to their industrial efficiency in a warm climate. See Elphin- 
stone's History of India, 9th ed., p. 215, and Risley, People of India, 
P- 43- 



19 

tern and religious and race prejudices failed to keep their blood 
from assimilation with their neighbors, and thus today we find 
a very small element of predominantly Aryan white blood in 
India. 

After many centuries of tranquillity during which the Indo- 
Aryans were accomplishing their mental evolution and crystal- 
izing it into their institutions, came successive waves of the 
Greeks, the White Huns, the Mongolians, the Semitic Arabs, the 
Mohammedans, the Negroes from Africa, and the Jews from 
Palestine and Asia Minor. Some of these like the Scythians and 
the Greeks, adopted the Indo-Aryan creeds and institutions, while 
others, like the Mohammedans, imposed their creed on a por- 
tion of the existing population. x\ll of them, however, became 
inevitably mixed in race and culture, and all in time submitted 
to the powerful influence of Indo-Aryan culture and customs. 
It is interesting tc note that among many other things we find 
this peculiar fact, that under the influence of Indo-Aryan cul- 
ture even the Mohammedans, the Christians, and the Jews in 
India have learned to follow indirectly some form of a caste 
system. 

Thus we see that the population of India consists of a vast 
conglomeration of many race elements, which, though racially 
mixed, have been split up into thousands of small and large 
communities of interest, some of them racially purer than others. 
We find that the Turanian Dravidian people, a reddish-black 
race of Caucasian appearance and physiognomy, constitutes the 
major part of the Indian population, and from the point of view 
of their economic contribution and the numerical majority the 
country may properly be said to belong to them. In the north- 
west of India we find the center of the predominantly white 
Indo-Aryan blood, and as we go farther from that point towards 
east and south, we come across various degrees of mixed Aryan 
and Dravidian blood, until towards the farthest east and in al- 
most the whole of the south below the Vindhya mountains we find 
a predominantly black Dravidian population, in the northeast 
somewhat intermingled with the Mongohan blood.^ Of course, 
there are exceptions to this general rule, as there are later im- 
migrants who have settled south and east and show the predom- 
inantly white blood of the Greek or Scythian invaders with 
whom their affinity is recognized. 

^Baine's Ethnology (in Biililer's Grundriss) p. 15. Also the map 
showing race" distribution in India attached to Mr. Risley's Appendix 
referred to above. 



f 



20 



It is these basic facts of pseudo-heterogeneity of racial com- 
position and the multipHcity of the rigidly close communities, of 
interest called castes, a unique product of Indian psychology, 
that have accentuated the influence of such secondary factors 
as the religious and linguistic differences and impaired the po- 
lito-economic structure of society to such an extent as to pre- 
sent an insuperable obstacle to rapid political and economic 
progress — and the most daring reformer in India stands aghast 
before the power of these factors. 

I cannot here recount the innumerable secondary prob- 
lems of India, but let the reader imagine a country two-fifths as 
large as the United States, containing a population of 300,000,- 
000 people divided into over 3,000 castes, speaking more than 
150 dialects, professing countless creeds, ruled by super- 
stitious customs and under the tutelage of thousands of princes 
or heads of small and large estates. Embracing some race ele- 
ments equal to any of the progressive and prosperous peoples of 
Western Europe, the country failed to build an economically 
sound civilization, failed to assimilate the fresh supplies of blood 
that came in, failed to eliminate linguistic and religious differ- 
ences and consolidate political organization ; in short, these 
heterogeneous elements failed to merge into one "people." 
Even today there is no "people" in India, in the political sense- 
of that word. Yes, there are priests and princes and rulers 
and heads of castes and corporations and clerks, but there is 
no "people" in the sense in which that term is understood in 
Western countries. How did this come about, and how can 
such a condition be ameliorated? To find a clue to the reply is 
the aim of this study. 

If we must fix the blame on someone for creating such con- 
ditions in India, we can lay it especially on those immigrants 
who came there about 2500 B. C, and called themselves Aryans, 
distant kinsmen of the Germanic tribes of Europe. But we 
can hardly place the responsibility on these people. Their own 
thinking and actions were conditioned by factors which were 
beyond their control. At any rate, these are the people whose 
history, beliefs, and institutions supply the most important gen- 
etic clue to the problems of India. But for the coming of these 
people to India the history of that country would have been to- 
day either a relatively blank page or would have contained a 
list of kingdoms and dynasties to match those of the Chinese 



21 

and Ottoman Empires. Prior to the coming of the Indo- 
Aryans, political events in India, it is believed, were shaping 
themselves along the normal lines. We find the powerful Dra- 
vidian kingdoms organized and maintained on an efficient politi- 
cal basis, the population classified into three main divisions on 
a strict precedence of wealth and political power — the nobility, 
gentry, and slaves to correspond to the English earl, thane and 
ceorl, the Roman patrician, plebian and slave.^ The Dravidian 
freeman of the village community had bec'ome subject to the 
manorial lord and the manorial lord paid homage to the central 
control. Political organization was gradually consolidating and 
economic progress was slowly making headway, and one notes 
with intense interest the parallel between the politico-economic 
developments in feudal Europe and those in India at this 
period. It seems that at a given stage of evolution human na- 
ture unfolds itself in a precisely similar fashion under identical 
conditions. But all this until the Aryans came on the scene, 
and now we find that the feudal lordships stayed where they 
were and failed to disintegrate and make room for the people, 
for the people did not care and the people as a body politic was 
no more. 

The Indo-Aryans themselves sincerely believed and told 
these distinguished predecessors of theirs that they were en- 
gaged in a wild goose chase ;'^ that the ambition to accumulate 
riches and build empires was unworthy, because it never ends, 
and because, moreover, riches and empires belong to this world 
and remain here, from which after a temporary sojourn, the hu- 
man soul must depart. Therefore, they advised them to go 
after permanent values that appertain to the soul and bring 
eternal bliss. Such was the sincerity of their attitude in this 
matter, the reality of their belief, the attractiveness of their 
philosophy, the subtlety of their intellect, and the plasticity of 
their teachings that they readily enlisted to their standard that 
vast population including the most powerful princes and the 
poorest beggars; and the king as well as the beggar were now 
alike zealously devoted to making accumulations for the here- 
after. A vast population was, so to say, hypnotized. The complex 

'Hewitt's Primitive Traditional History, chap. IV, Sec. K, pp. 410- 
445. Sec. on the comparison of the Indian and the European Monarch- 
ical Institutions and Land Tenure. 

'This is my inference. For influence of the Aryans as teachers of 
the Dravidian princes see Ruling Races, etc., p. iii et seq. 



22 

machinery for manufacturing these spiritual products was now 
set in motion, the elaborate sacrifices and ceremonies costing 
many princes their fortunes, the caste system bringing many mil- 
lions to their ruin, the various cults and austere practices, the min- 
ute regulation of everyday life activities by the sacred law — all 
these were at first intended to facilitate the accumulation of 
spiritual merits and to open the path upwards to a higher 
birth, to a better world with less misery, and, finally, to 
that stage of complete absorption into the universal soul 
which gives freedom from birth, death, sickness, and from 
all the misery and trouble that go with life and living. 
For over twenty centuries this charm worked on the popu- 
lar mind undisturbed by outside influences, and so deeply 
were the people hypnotized by the fascinating ideals that 
when the shock came from the outside world it was too late to 
waken them from the power of this sweet slumber. The mould 
was cast and hardened and it was in vain that Buddha, Chan- 
dragupta, Asoka, Vikramaditya, even an Akbar, a Shiva ji, and 
a Madhji Scindya tried to give new impressions and stamp to 
the original setting; and the British government and the Indian 
reformers of today well know the burden of their problem. It 
is through the Indo-Aryans then that the political and economic 
fate of India was sealed. But can they at least tell us why they 
did so or how they achieved these remarkable results? Yes, 
for this purpose they have left us a most valuable legacy, per- 
haps as though to justify and acquit themselves before the great 
tribunal of humanity. We shall now examine the character of 
this evidence. 

The British conquered not only the land and the people of 
India, but their versatile genius and all inquiring spirit sent 
forth their rays into all the dismal corners of the country, which 
were closed even to her own sons by almost impassable barriers 
set by the Brahmanical law. Not many years had elapsed since 
their first tiny territorial acquisition in that land, when scholars 
like Wilkins and Jones began their labors in the field of Sans- 
krit literature, and sent forth messages to the Western world 
that they had discovered the existence of another world of 
thought and spirit, entirely unique in its character and 
without parallel elsewhere. Colebrooke and Wilson by their 
further studies confirmed this news. Then came the great 
French scholar Burnouf, who by his comparative method 



23 

and organizing genius disclosed for the first time the 
true worth of the Vedic discovery and gave a tremendous im- 
petus to Sanskrit research^ and it was not wasted as was proved 
by the labors of his pupils, Max Miiller and Roth, who later 
became famous Vedic scholars and pushed still further the 
work of their predecessors. 

It is not my aim here to give a sketch® of the history of the 
progress of Sanskrit research, but I may emphasize its import- 
ance by pointing to the rapidity of its exploitation. Such was 
the fervor with which these studies were prosecuted that within 
the short space of only half a century the entire field of Sans- 
krit literature was organized and systematized, and in spite of 
the fact that there are thousands of manuscripts yet unedited 
and probably many more yet undiscovered, there is scarcely a 
known document of importance that has not been translated 
or edited and made accessible to the student. Even the earliest 
labors in Sanskrit research did not remain unappreciated. Senti- 
ments in "Sakuntala" enraptured as enlightened a soul as that of 
Goethe and the Upanishads solaced as stern and wilful a spirit as 
that of Schopenhauer. The discovery was not, however, allowed 
to remain a mere literary curiosity. A closer study of Sanskrit 
at once disclosed that it was a language® "unparalleled among 
its cognates in antiquity and distinctness of structure, yet re- 
vealing many points of resemblance with the substratum of the 
European languages". Sir William Jones as early as 1786 de- 
clared it to be a language of wonderful structure ; "more perfect 
than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more ex- 
quisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a 
stronger affinity both in the roots and verbs and the forms of 
grammar than could have been produced by accident, and he 
hinted at a comm.on source of all these languages". This sugges- 
tion was developed into a valid scientific theory by tlie German 
scholar, Franz Bopp, who led in the foundation of the study of 
scientific and comparative philology. By a series of further 
studies by other scholars the mutual relationship of the indi- 
vidual m.embers of the entire group of Indo-European lan- 
guages was made clear. For a time these findings in linguistic 

*For a sketch of the progress of Sanskrit research see A. A. Mac- 
donell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, chap. I. Also Schroeder, 
Indiens Literatur und Kiiltur; Erste Vorlesung. 

"Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XIV, nth ed. ; article on Indo- 
European languages. 



24 

affinity were, in the enthusiasm of the discovery, misinterpreted, 
and on the basis of linguistic affinity the dark skinned Bengali 
and Madrasi and the blue-eyed Teuton were declared to be of 
the same race. So complete was the illusion for a time that 
even as scrutinizing a mind as that of Sir Walter Bagehot 
wonders why the Bengalis," who belong to the Aryan race, 
are found to be incapable of maintaining self-government and 
building up progressive and democratic institutions. These 
illusions were soon dispelled by light from ethnological re- 
searches. As early as 1864 the great ethnologist Broca empha- 
sized the fact that race and language were not necessarily identi- 
cal and that an affinity of language of the two peoples was not 
in itself a guarantee of their racial affinity. 

A close study of Vedic literature revealed the fact that it 
presented a vivid picture of the working of the primitive 
human mind at a certain stage of its religious development, and 
thereupon Kuhn and Max Miiller established a science of com- 
parative mythology.^^ As research progressed farther in 
Sanskrit philosophical documents, they proved to be an excel- 
lent field for the study of the evolution of the Indian mind from 
its stage of the early simple Vedic beliefs to the period which 
produced the most acute metaphysical speculations. It was 
unanimously noted that the later developments in these various 
branches of Sanskrit culture were entirely original and unique 
and this fact has been explained as a result of exclusion from 
the outside world and a consequent one-sided development of 
thought for a period of over twenty centuries. ^^ 

While the linguistic, religious and philosophical - merits of 
Sanskrit literature were thus duly appreciated and eagerly ex- 
ploited, its historical merits for a study of social economic cau- 
sation remain practically unrecognized. For beyond a few com- 
monplace observations regarding the influence of the Indian 
climate on the energy of the Aryan stock there seems to have 
been little effort on the part of scholars to use these researches 
for a more thorough genetic analysis of the present-day compli- 
cations in India. Yet for just such a purpose the Sanskrit litera- 

"Sir Walter Bagehot's Physics and Politics, chap. Ill, p. 182. 

"Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 6. 

"Even the most conservative estimates locate the period of Indo- 
Aryan invasion as early as about 1200 B. C. and the first Mohammedan 
conquest of epoch making importance entered India from the north in 
the nth century A. D. 



25 

ture affords a wealth of material which, if correctly interpreted, 
throws a singular light on the mental evolution of the Indo- 
Aryans and supplies at the same time a valuable clue to the 
solution of some of India's most difficult economic and political 
problems. *It tells us why the Aryans when they first went to 
India wanted wealth, progeny, and prosperity and why they de- 
spised the same in their later programs for life achievements. It 
gives us a better understanding of some of those most unique 
products of the Indian psychology, such as the ceremonial, the 
caste system, asceticism, eroticism, and the existence of 
gross superstition that we find in India today. It shows us how 
the economic life of the people which at first formed a powerful 
upper current was finally, under the influence of Indo-Aryan 
thought, reduced to a mere under current, bringing about the 
economic and political decay of Indian society. For a genetic 
study of this type the literary documents of Sanskrit culture 
owing to their completeness and unique character remain un- 
rivalled. With the help of these we shall now study how the 
racial conglomeration, social differentiation and fixed psychic 
constitution, observable among the people of India, were formed. 



CHAPTER II 

the; uIvTimate; physical dkti;rminants oi? indo-aryan pouti- 

CAI, AND ECONOMIC UI^E 

We shall do well to start with an attempt to familiarize our- 
selves with the early life history of the Aryans, in whose 
culture and institutions we expect to find an explanation of the 
present-day conditions in India and a clue to their solution. But 
if we are too inquisitive and go too far back, we are likely to 
come out disappointed, for in spite of the most persistent re- 
searches of many able European scholars, practically nothing is 
yet definitely known of the original home of the so-called Aryan 
family, from whom the Germans, the Greeks, the Romans, Slavs, 
Persians, and the Sanskrit people are supposed to have origi- 
nated. For some time in the early stages of Indo-European 
philological research scholars had located the home of the re- 
mote ancestors of all these people in central Asia near the 
river Oxus. This opinion held sway completely until there 
came others who claimed some place in Europe as the seat of 
the first Aryan home. More recently Otto Schrader places it in 
the steppes of southern Russia,^ on the theory that the more 
definitely located centers of Aryan stock in the east and west 
tend to point out that region as the meeting point. In short, we 
have not sufficient data to come to any definite conclusion in 
this matter. 

Of the racial type of this supposed original stock we 
also know very little. Its members have been described 
as having been of tall stature, blonde hair, blue eyes and 
in almost all respects possessing the bodily type of the 
Germanic tribes of Europe as described by Tacitus in 
his "Germania." But there has been a great controversy 
as to whether the differentiation in the physical type of 
the Aryan race as we find it later came about after their dis- 
persal from their original home or existed even when they lived 
together. Some maintain that the original group must have 
occupied a wide region, as it takes many square miles per head 
to support human life at the hunting stage of civilization ; and at 
this time it may have been that the various physical types, rep- 

^Otto Schrader's "Sprachvergleichung," latest edition, igo6. Here 
we find a thorough discussion of the original home and culture 
of the so-called Aryan races. He presents a critical survey of the 
past and contemporary writings on the subject and gives an exhaustive 
bibliography. 



27 

resented by blonde and brunette hair and bracho- and dolicho- 
cephalic skulls and different colors of eye pigment already dif- 
ferentiated, may have lived together under the influence of a 
common culture and uniform institutions. 

Notwithstanding all these hypotheses we are unable to do 
more than maintain that they were a people belonging to the 
Caucasian white race in the present sense of that term, and that 
perhaps the stock that came towards India resembled in physi- 
cal appearance the Germanic tribes of Europe. 

The glowing pictures of their home life and culture that have 
been drawn by M. Pictet and others have also been rejected, 
and now our actual knowledge as to their social and economic 
condition is confined to a few meagre statements. We have 
overwhelming proof, however, of the remote cultural and racial 
affinity between the branches of the Indo-Aryans that came to 
India and those that went westwards to the Graeco-Italian 
Peninsula and northward to Germany. We grant then to the 
Aryans who came to India a physical and cultural equipment 
similar to that of the western races of Europe who are now 
marching under the banner of progress and enjoying economic 
prosperity. 

In the words of Dr. Oldenberg :^ 

Die arischen Einwanderer in Indien nahmen, indem sie sich von 
ihren Brudervolkern trennten, doch die Spuren, und mehr als blosse 
Spuren, der einstigen Gemeinsamkeit in die neue Heimat mit hiniiber. 
Bei ihren Opfern wurden Lieder gesungen, deren Sprache der Sprache 
Homers und des Ulfilas nah verwandt war. Diese lyieder feierten 
Cotter wie das reisige himmlische Zwillingspaar, wahrscheinlich die 
Dioskuren der Griechen, oder den starken Riesen, welcher den Donner- 
keil schwingt, wohl den Donar-Thor der Germanen. Ueberall waren 
Keime vorhanden, aus denen, zvenn dhnliche Luft und Sonne sie zur 
Bntwicklutig gebracht hdtte, Formen von Glauben und Poesie, von Sitte 
und Recht hdtten hervorgehen konnen, die sich den Denk — und Lebens- 
fortnen jener Nationen, der Trdgerinnen hochster europdischer Kultur, 
gleichartig und gleichwertig an die Seite gestellt hdtten. 

In Wahrheit is^es anders gekommen, niusste es anders kommen. 
Die nach Westen weisenden Krafte und Charakterziige des indischen 
Volks mussten in der Abgeschnittenheit vom frischen Leben des Westens 
rettungslos erschlaffen, in der mviden Stille, unter dem gliihenden 
Himmel der neuen Heimat, in der langsamen aber unausbleiblichen • 
Vermischung mit den dunkelfarbigen Urbewohnern. Ein neues Volk, 
ein neuer Volkscharakter musste sich bilden, der Charakter, welcher 
daraus hervorging, dass der alten hohen intellektuellen Begabiing 
der reichen Phantasie der indischen Arier das Gegengewicht gesunder 

*Die Literatur des Alten Indien, p. 2. 



28 

Tatkraft entzogen ward. Auf alien Gebieten des geistigen Daseins 
gewann dieser Charakter die Herrschaft. Im offentlichen Leben 
trat statt der plastischen Gebilde von Staatsformen, welche die nationalen 
Krafte zugleich zu entfesseln und zusammenzuhalten vermocht batten, 
die unplastische Formlosigkeit des Despotismus und der Kaste mit 
ihrer dumpfen Atmosphare von Zwang und Aberglauben in den Vorder- 
grund. Auf sittlichem und religiosem Gebiet ein Hinundherschwanken 
zwischen Extremen der Sinnlichkeit und der Entsagung, zwischen 
ekstatisch iibei-spannter Selbstvergotterung und Verzweiflung an allem 
Dasein. In der Wissenschaft ein Aufbauen spitzfindiger Systeme, 
manch glanzender Gedanke, der doch vmter dem Wust willkurlicher, alle 
Realitat aus den Augen verlierender Spielereien mit iiberkiinstlichen 
Begriffen und leeren Worten verschiittet wurde. In der Dichtung viel 
sinnige Zartheit, die Pracht bunter und gliihender Farben, aber audi 
hier jener selbe Mangel an Mass und plastischer Form, jene selbe 
Kiinstlichkeit, jenes Spielen mit einem immer iibertriebener zugespitzten 
Raffinement der Gedanken und Worte. 

The vigorous seed was there, but failed to develop into a 
full grown tree of healthy growth. It produced profuse foliage 
on some of its branches and abundant blossoms on others and 
allowed still others to decay. Dr. Oldenberg along with many 
Indo-Aryan scholars finds the chief explanation of these facts in 
some well-known factors such as climate, race mixture, etc. 
We shall point out that in order fully to account for all the 
peculiarities of Indo-Aryan institutions we shall have to give 
credit to many other important factors not before well recog- 
nized. 

A greater part of the achievements of man of which he is so 
proud or his failures of which he feels so ashamed is often the 
result of certain "conjunctures" or accidents (as we may call 
them) in the course of his life history in the widest sense of that 
term, including the incident of his heredity. This is even more 
so when that achievement or failure becomes the lot of a whole 
society or community. Many such "conjunctures," as we shall 
presently see, occurred in the life history of the Indo-Aryans 
after they arrived in India, and so many of them that we should 
not blame those people if we find a fatalistic attitude in their 
philospphy. In this chapter I shall mention some of the more 
important of these "conjunctures" and indicate their significance 
in shaping the course of the future life history of the Indo- 
Aryans and those that have come under the influence of their 
thought. Some of these significant incidents are as follows : 

I. The point at which the Aryans entered India was espe- 
cially favorable and the consequences of such an incident were 
far reaching. 



29 

2. These vigorous and warlike people, used to a hard 
struggle for livelihood on their advance towards the Gangetic 
Valley, came into sudden possession of surplus energy due to 
the bounty of nature, influence over their rich predecessors and 
"easy conditions of life." 

3. Atmospheric and climatic conditions. Degeneration and 
disappearance of the dominant type. Development of abnormal 
psychological tendencies. 

4. Influence of the surrounding Dravidian races and culture. 
Caste system and race mixture. 

5. Isolation : they were excluded from contact with the out- 
side world for twenty centuries or more and the direction of 
their thoughts, which was the result of an accident, became 
accentuated and confirmed. 

These five factors we may now take up for a more detailed 
discussion, in the order named above. 

I. The favorable point of entry: The geographical condi- 
tions disclosed by the Rig Vedic hymns tell us that the Aryans 
after they crossed the Hindukush mountains found themselves 
first in Pan jab. This was a lucky incident, for the people with 
whom they first came into contact were not the most civilized 
and powerful of their predecessors in India. Here was a popu- 
lation represented by the timid, wild Kol tribes, whom the more 
civilized Dravidians had already ousted^ from their stronghold 
in the northeast and forced to seek resort in the less favorable 
regions of Panjab. It was no wonder, therefore, that the 
Aryans made a clean sweep of the Dasyus before them. These 
are the "speechless niggards," the "impious cannibals" and the 
"black-skinned devils" of whom they tell us in the Rig Veda.^* 
Certainly this is not the description of the more civilized* Dra- 
vidians whom they came across later. 

Fortunately or unfortunately for the Aryans the center of 
the Dravidian power lay in the northeast, in the localities of the 
present provinces of Orissa and Chutia Nagpur.^ Had the 
Aryans happened to be trying to get into India from this direc- 

*Prim. Trad. Hist., chap. 3, Sec. H, pp. 218-40, on Pre- Vedic Migra- 
tions into India. 

'"R. C. Dutt, History of Civilization in Ancient India, ist ed., 1889, 

chap. IV, pp. 75-90. 

''Ruling Races, p. 310. 

Trim. Trad. Hist, Vol. I, p. 410 et seq. 



30 

tion, the Vedic hymns would have been written in a different 
vein and the contempt for the "black-skinned devil" would not 
have been so unqualified. It was the same luck that the British 
people had in getting an entry into India through the already 
emasculated Bengal. 

This triumphant entry into the new country not only gave 
them a basis for their future operations, but led them to a 
stronger belief in the efficacy of their sacrificial rites, which gen- 
erally preceded their attacks on their enemies and in which the 
assistance of Indra, Agni, and the Maruts, etc., was invoked. 
This accidental coincidence of the apparent causal relations of 
sacrifice to success at once brought a high prestige both to the 
sacrifice and the sacrificer. The influence of such a lucky acci- 
dent in creating strange causal beliefs and superstitions in prim- 
itive minds, has been well recognized by interpreters of history. 

2. Sudden possession of surplus energy, a condition of civili- 
zation as well as of degeneracy : "Madhyadesha," or "midland"® 
between the east and the west, is credited as being the chief seat 
of the Brahmanical culture. What is the significance of this 
fact? So long as the Aryans were in Panjab their struggle 
for livelihood was not very different from what they had been 
accustomed to in their former home in Iran. The topography and 
the climatic conditions'^ made it necessary for them to keep mov- 
ing in order to gain subsistence. However, as they advanced east- 
ward and brought under their influence the prosperous Dravid- 
ians^ and their fertile territories, in conjunction with the easier 
life conditions, they found themselves in sudden possession of 
enormous surplus energy. The Aryans were a strong and ener- 
getic people, their bodies representing highly developed physio- 
logical apparatus, holding in reserve a plentiful energy that was 
kept alive by constant application in gaining their livelihood and 
struggling against their environment. Under their new life 
conditions systematic gaining of livelihood was a matter of no 
consequence, as it required little effort on their part. Thus a vast 
amount of surplus energy was liberated from its original use and 
for this they had to find a new outlet. Leisure creates culture as 
well as induces degeneracy according to the use to which it is put 

'Macdonell, p. 213 et seq. Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 38. 
'Zimmer, p. 40. Also, Lassen, Christian — Indische Altertumskunde, 
I, 247 et seq., 2nd ed. 

^Ruling Races, Essay II, pp. 101-121. Also p. 61 et seq. 



31 

and the environmental condition of its possessors. The surplus 
energy of the early settlers of the United States has given birth to 
one of the most prosperous of economic civilizations. The Rom- 
ans once used surplus energy to play the parts described in "Quo 
Vadis." Here then we find conditions that made possible the 
evolution of the Indo-Aryan culture as well as the voluptuous 
and erotic tendencies of the Sanskrit folk which show them- 
selves so prominently in the spirit of some of their literary pro- 
ductions. 

3. Does the geographical environment determine the extent of 
the progress and the character of the culture of a community? 
There are some who make man a slave of nature and there are 
others who warn us not to interpret cultures and civilizations in 
terms of the bounty of nature, majesty of the skies and 
grandeur of the landscape. They consider the views of men like 
Montesquieu, Ratzel, Bullock, etc., as exaggerated and suggest 
predominantly psychological factors as causal determinants of 
progress. The truth seems to lie somewhere between these two 
extremes and Professor Giddings has well expressed it in his 
"Principles of Sociology,"" where he maintains that while the 
volitional factors play a prominent role in social causation, the 
ultimate limits of the extent of that process are dependent upon 
processes of the physical and organized world. But it helps us 
little to know that man has a range of choice between certain lim- 
its and that beyond these limits his powers fail. Far more im- 
portant for our purpose is the fact that in the struggle between 
volition and the influence of environment man is, in time, not a 
constant but a variable factor, and any generalization as regards 
the relation of man to his environment, if made to hold true with- 
out regard to time and a particular period of humanity, is likely to 
be too rigid to fit the actual facts or too loose to be of any prac- 
tical value in a study of social economic causation. In applying 
analogies of the physical world to the laws of social progress a 
mistake is made in counting upon time as an independent variable 
in respect to man. This error has led some scholars to absurd 
conclusions as regards the destiny of some races of mankind. As 
time goes on, man as a factor in social evolution is constantly 
changing, and to what extent this change will qualify him in the 
future to resist the baleful influences of environment that have 
once compelled his homage we should not be too hasty to predict. 

^Principles of Sociology, p. 416. 



32 

If the tropics have been in times gone by the grave of human 
energy and progress, they may fail to repeat identical results in 
the future, for time is constantly changing man, and man unlike 
an inorganic body cannot be exactly duplicated so that the experi- 
ment may be repeated under identical conditions at different 
periods of time. The response of an inorganic element under 
identical experimental conditions can be counted upon with 
certainty and predicted with precision. In the case of man such 
a response may vary — especially after the lapse of ages. The 
failure of scientists to recognize time as a variable not inde- 
pendent in respect to man is well emphasized by Professor 
Bergson in his "Creative Evolution".^" 

Thus, while we cannot lay down very definitely what will 
happen to mankind or to a particular race in the future, under 
conditions that change environment, we can state somewhat more 
definitely what has happened to them in the past and estimate 
the effect of their behavior as a factor in the process of pro- 
gressive causation. Even a superficial study of the history of 
mankind convinces us that in the past human societies in the 
dififerent regions of the world have been profoundly influenced 
by the nature of their geographical environment. The Indo- 
Aryans present a most remarkable case in point. The spirit 
of the early Rig Vedic verses is too obvious to be mistaken. In 
these verses we find the active Aryans eager to exterminate their 
enemies and obtain wealth, progeny and prosperity. Life and 
the things of life were now to them a joy. Compare such a spirit 
with that of the quiescent and ascetic Sanskrit philosophy and 
especially that of Buddhism where life is looked upon as a 
source of constant misery and living a necessary evil. Mr. 
Schroeder well expresses the contrast in the following lines :^^ 

Charakteristisch ist diesen Hymnen Kraft, Frische und UrspriingHch- 
keit der Empfindung, gegeniiber der in der spateren Poesie sich findenden 
Zartheit, ja Weichlichkeit und Ueppigkeit; desgleichen Einfachheit und 
Gesundheit der Anschauungen und nicht sellen eine gewisse Naivitat der 
Gedanken und Bilder, gegeniiber spater sich findenden Uebertreibungen, 
Maasslosigkeiten, ja Ungeheuerlichkeiten. Von den spater so deutlich 
hervortretenden romantischen Eigenschaften ist im Rigveda gar nichts 
zu finden, weder nach der guten, rioch nach der schlimmen Seite. Kraft- 
voile poetische Schilderungen der Natur, die sich bis zu kiihnem Schwung 
erheben, treten uns hier entgegen. Wie die Culturstufe des Rigveda uns 
an die Schilderung der Germanen bei Tacitus erinnert, so hat auch die 

"Especially chapters I and IV. 
"Indiens Literatur und Kultur, p. 46. 



33 

Poesie des Rigveda eine gewisse Wahlverwandtschaft mit der altger- 
manischen Poesie. Es its ein kiihner, kraftvoller, streitbarcr Geist, der 
in diesen Hymnen lebt, noch ungebrochen durch die spater erst 
entstehenden priesterlichen Satzungen. Mit freudiger Lust klammert 
sich der Inder des Rigveda an das frische, bliihende Leben. Br will 
lehcn, will reichen, tiichtigen Besitz, streitbare Sohne haben und hundert 
Winter frohlich und gesund schauen. Seinen Gottern will er gern und 
freudig dienen, sie sollen ihm dafiir aber audi helfen, hier gliicklich 
und reich zu leben und dereinst in die seligen Gefilde Yama's einzugehen. 

What can have brought about the change that we observe 
in the Brahmanical philosophy of life? Undoubtedly, the cli- 
mate has indirectly played a prominent role in determining the 
nature of Indo-Aryan culture. Almost every prominent scholar 
of Indian history has mentioned this fact. It is pointed out that 
the energetic Aryans, Arabs, and Greeks, who went there, 
under the malignant influence of that climate degenerated and 
fell a prey to their successors, and it is maintained that the 
British people hold their sway in India only by reason of their 
not being permanently domiciled in that country. 

From our point of view, important as the climatic factor has 
been in the history of Indo-Aryan civilization, its modus oper- 
andi has been heretofore misunderstood, and hence its evil effects 
overestimated and its favorable influence underestimated. In 
a good many parts of India the summer climate is not any more 
oppressive or severe than the hot July and August days in New 
York State. The winters, though they do not bring snow, are 
chilly and brisk. We must also remember that the same climate 
has produced such energetic men as Chandragupta, Asoka, 
Schivaji and Madhji-Scindya and others when the occasion re- 
quired them and the social environment permitted the assertion 
of such personalities. Moreover, it was under the influence of this 
climate that the Aryan intellect blossomed and bore its fruit in 
Indian philosophy and Indian wisdom, which in time will be 
better appreciated and more fully recognized by the Western 
world even than it has been so far. I am not writing all this in 
order merely to indulge in the praise of the past glories of India. 
I only wish to remove the impression that the climate of India 
as a genetic factor is bound to remain, as some maintain, a 
permanent obstacle to the future progress of that country. 

From the cold climate of their original home in Iran to the 
stifling heat of the midland and the Gangetic Valley, was a radi- 
cal change in their environment to which even the sturdy Aryans 



34 

could not help being susceptible. They frequently tell us in Rig 
Veda that they find the summer heat very oppresive. Yet in 
the bounty of nature, the good will of the prosperous Dra- 
vidians and the easy conditions of life they had too many advan- 
tages to think of abandoning their new home. So for good or 
ill they accepted the conditions as they were and adopted that 
country as their permanent place of residence. 

My hypothesis as to the manner in which the climate worked 
on the physiological apparatus of the Aryans is somewhat dif- 
ferent from that usually accepted and has two aspects. One 
finds ample evidence, I think, in Sanskrit literature to distin- 
guish two diametrically opposite tendencies on the part of these 
people — under the influence of the climate — one to physiological 
degeneracy and eroticism and the other to abnomial psychologi- 
cal developments culminating in asceticism. The extent of erotic 
literature^- in the Sanskrit language gives us a good idea of the 
enervating effects of the Indian climate on the Indo-Aryan 
stock and the accounts in the Itihasa writings of the hundreds 
of voluptuous men and women of India confirm the actual ex- 
istence of this evil to a large extent. This tendency, however, 
affected only the less vital type of the community which suc- 
cumbed eventually to impotence or consumption and was thus 
self-eliminated. 

The other tendency — that to overcontemplation and ascetic- 
ism — affected only the very dominant type. It was the most am- 
bitious men of the community who laid out for themselves the 
difficult programs of concentration, spiritual communion, and 
exclusion from the worldly life. This ascetic tendency acted it- 
self as a process of elimination. To live the life of Brahmacha- 
rya (celibacy) was an ambition which only the most self-con- 
trolled type of men could achieve. Manu tells us that thousands 
of Brahmans wishing to live this exalted life went to heaven 
without leaving any progeny^^ and even in his own time the 
illustrious Rishis of radiant power who could transgress laws 
with impunity were no more in existence and the people had to 
live more ordinary lives keeping themselves within the bound- 
aries of caste duties. 



"See Richard Schmidt's Beitrage ziir Indischen Erotik, Berlin, 191 1. 
Mr. Schmidt attributes the erotic character of Sanskrit people partly 
to their reflective tendencies. In my judgment both the eroticism and 
the reflective tendencies were results of a common cause — the climate. 

"Manu, V, 159. 



. 35 

The disappearance of these two types — the erotic weaklings 
and the dominant psychopaths — need be no cause of regret to 
any descendants of that race and inheritors of their culture. The 
Aryan of the average type was in the meanwhile becoming grad- 
ually acclimatized and racially mixed with the surrounding Dra- 
vidian, forming as a result a population superior to both the 
parent stocks from the point of view of its efficiency for exploit- 
ing the economic resources of warm regions. Had it not been 
for the legacy of a perverted social mind from the extinct domi- 
nant type India today would be a very prosperous coun- 
try and politically independent. But the social mind of the 
population of India paid homage to the teachings of these 
dominant men and followed them and are following them long 
after they have passed away. It is in this legacy of abnormal 
psychology and not in the physiological degeneracy that wc find 
a true explanation of the political and economic stagnation of 
the people of India. What was the nature of these psycholog- 
ical tendencies we shall presently see. It is sufficient to say 
here that they diverted the attention of the people from the 
tangible pursuits of economic and political life to the intangible 
goals of eternal bliss and salvation. 

4. Under the influence of this changed attitude of life the 
severity of their hatred of the aboriginal races was miti- 
gated. Moreover, the Dravidians, whom they now confronted 
in the midland and the Gangetic Valley, were far superior 
both in physique and culture to the "speechless niggards" 
whom they had met first on their arrival in Pan jab. The 
shrewd Aryan was well aware of the numerical superiority 
of the Dravidians as well as of their military efficiency. 
This was a population they could neither enslave nor extermi- 
nate. The vastness of the area, furthermore, made it possible 
that both the races could live together side by side without con- 
stant warfare. Under the influence of these various circum- 
stances the Aryans used the strategy of enlisting the Dravidians 
under their religious standards. By force of their arguments 
and the show of their ceremonies they easily succeeded in making 
obedient to their will the vast ocean of the surrounding black 
population. But granting them their religion they had to grant 
them at least some of the social privileges that went with it. 
Thus there had to be effected a process of readjustment of social 
relations between the two races, and it is chiefly in this process 



36 

of spiritual recognition of the various Dravidian communities in 
different degrees that we find the true genesis of the caste sys- 
tem. The many hundreds of castes do not represent race 
hybridization and degrees of race mixture as has been conceived 
by many, but they are based upon spiritual differentiation, and 
it is only so far as race quality elevated the spiritual standing 
or as race mixture lowered it, that race distinction played any 
part in creating and perpetuating the caste system in India. 

5. Isolation: Powerful as the climatic factor has been, its 
effect would not have been so accentuated and indefinitely per- 
petuated had it not been for still another conjuncture which we 
come across in the course of Indo-Aryan history. Whatever 
psychological tendencies the Indo-Aryans developed under the 
influence of their environment became cumulative in their effect 
in the total absence of any disintegrating forces from the outside 
world. The character of the Indian mental evolution is described 
as being absolutely unique and original, having no parallel else- 
where in the world." But it is also true that nowhere in the 
world did so superior a race as the Aryans meet with so many 
remarkable conjunctures. The unique and original character of 
the Indian civilization lies mainly in the development of ex- 
tremes'^ in all directions, beginnings of most of which we find in 
the simple Rig Vedic civilization and in that of their brethren in 
Europe. In part, this exaggeration was due to the development 
of the patho-psychological tendencies just mentioned. For an 
explanation of a still larger part we must look to another factor 
which is to be found in their complete isolation from the out- 
side world for many centuries. After the Aryans came to 
India about 2500 B. C, there was no invasion of that coun- 
try for a period of over twenty centuries. The Aryans in 
India being bent upon salvation and heavenly bliss did not de- 
velop any commercial intercourse with neighboring countries. 
Thus we find the Indo-Aryans gradually bringing to perfection 
whatever tendencies they had developed, and during the course 
of centuries they built the structures of their institutions so 
solidly that neither the Greeks, the Mohammedans, nor even the 
powerful bombardment of the British contact could shake them 
effectively. Granting the vigorous racial stock and the exhilar- 
ating influence of the geographical environment, this fact 

"Macdonell, Literary History, p. 7. 
"Ibid., p. 10. 



37 

of isolation has played the most prominent role in sealing the 
fate of the Indo- Aryan civilization. 

Under the combined influence of these various factors — en- 
vironmental and racial — was born that rigid attitude of the 
Indian social mind which in course of centuries has become 
developed into almost a "fixed idea" and which supports un- 
grudgingly the tyranny of the Brahmanical Law and Institu- 
tions, so ruinous to the growth of healthy national life. 

How, in the absence of these unfavorable coincidences, the 
vigorous and intelligent Aryans would have used their boon of 
surplus energy is a matter about which we need not much in- 
dulge conjecture. We cannot help noticing, however, that they 
had, and they have today, all the equipment for the building of a 
progressive and prosperous economic and political civilization — 
daring and intelligent leaders, fertile soil, vast mineral resources^" 
and, in the Dravidian races, a strong and sturdy population well 
acclimatized to hot regions and well acquainted with the prac- 
tical arts of life. On these foundations they could have built a 
politico-economic structure that would have resisted easily the 
attacks of the Greeks, the Scythians, the Arabs, the Mongols, 
and even of the English. To assert that under pressure of 
proper environment they were fully capable of achieving such 
results, is not a mere haphazard guess. 

After the conquest or invasion from the north by Alexander 
the Great (327 B. C.) the eyes of the Indians were opened to the 
fact that there existed another world besides their own and that 
the people of this world were not as peaceful and humane 
as those of the one in which they were living. They 
were brought to realize therefore the necessity of a more 
centralized system of government and a more efficient 
military organization. In the developments that now fol- 
lowed we find the Indian princes eager to make their 
people more prosperous, their treasuries stronger and their mil- 
itia more efficient. This period of readjustment gave birth to 
men like Chanakya" in whose ideas and policies we find a close 

^"For even those resources of which the Aryans had taken cogniz- 
ance see Zimmer, p. 49 et seq. 

"Chanakya is reputed to have been the Finance Minister of 
Chandragupta, the head of perhaps the first large empire in India. He 
lived in the middle of the 3rd century B. C. It is said that it was 
through his tactics that the Dynasty was founded. His chief maxim 
seems to have been "Maximum of Revenue with Maximum of Pros- 
perity." His principles of revenue are set forth in his treatise, Artha- 
shastra (Science of Wealth), parts of which are translated by Mr. 
Shastry and have appeared in Indian Antiquary, Vol. 34, pp. 5, 47, and 
no et seq. See infra p. 44. 



38 

parallel to the doctrines of the Mercantilists of England and 
France and the Cameralists of Germany. The incentive, how- 
ever, came too late. The attitude of the Indian mind had become 
too fixed to permit of any thorough-going change and we find 
the Indians again falling into their sweet spiritual slumber 
until another shock came in the form of the Mohammedan in- 
vasion of the nth century A. D. But this was nearly a thousand 
years after the last Greek and Scythian disturbances, and during 
that period the mould had become still more hardened. 



CHAPTER III 

INTERME^DIATE^ PSYCHOLOGICAI, F'ORCES — CONI^LICT BE'I'Wi;:e.N 

SPIRITUAL AND ECONOMIC VAIvUE;S — TRIUMPH Of THE 

FORMER AND FORMATION OF THE INDO-ARYAN 

SOCIAL MIND 

The various environmental factors mentioned in the last 
chapter furnished, so to say, a hotbed for the growth of the 
Aryan mind. What happened to the Aryan mind in its new 
environment may be likened to what may happen to a vigorous 
seed which is induced to a forced and rapid growth. The intel- 
lect of the dominant type of the Indo-Aryan ripened rapidly and 
suffered a correspondingly rapid decay. Thoughts which oc- 
curred to Schopenhauer and Goethe 1800 years after Christ 
had already blossomed in the souls of their brethren in India as 
many centuries before Christ.^ These were abnormal develop- 
ments and were not suited for humanity as a whole at the time 
they took place. Imagine a child realizing the worthlessness of 
its toys or the limited powers of its mother to Avhom it looks 
for protection from all dangers. Or suppose the child learns the 
virtue of dignity. The greater part of the joys of its life will be 
lost to it. The Indo-Aryans saw the littleness of life too soon 
for the age in which they flourished. The}^ developed human- 
istic tendencies too early in the life history of man to win recog- 
nition from the outside barbarian world, and they fell victims 
to their own greatnesTof mind. The authors of this system of 
thought, as we have seen before, were self-eliminated, but for- 
tunately or unfortunately they have been most effectively sur- 
vived by their ideas which have now become crystalized into a 
"fixed attitude" of the Indian social mind. We shall now exam- 
ine more closely the process by which these developments came 
about. 

What are the conditions of a persistent mental evolution of 
mian ? We can answer such a question at best only in a negative 
way, i.e., we can say that certain conditions in the past have not 
been conducive to a healthy mental growth of man and that 
certain others have positively checked it. The potentiality of 
growth of a seed resides within the seed itself, nor can we 

^Winternitz, Morris : Geschichte der Indischen Literatur, pp. 6, 7. 
Also Schroeder, pp. 17, 18. 



40 

declare by merely looking at it why it grows into a tree or why 
it develops into a particular kind of a tree. We can say, how- 
ever, somewhat more definitely that certain conditions of nour- 
ishment and climatic environment will be favorable to a healthy 
growth of the seed and that others will produce its premature 
decay. So it is in the case of man. A persistent tendency of 
mental evolution is his peculiar potentiality but in the past it 
has not always been able to assert itself despite environ- 
ment. What it will do in the future we may merely guess from 
what has happened in the past and we are justified in conclud- 
ing that the progressive potentiality of man seems to be capable 
of overcoming all obstacles of environment, perhaps, as Pro- 
fessor Bergson says, even of death. 

The Aryans came to India with the potentiality of a tremen- 
dous push which had to find its expression in some form of 
activity. With this impetus they would have built almost any 
type of civilization according to the nature of their environment. 
They were yet a young, vigorous people, with child-like sim- 
plicity, an indefinite prospect of life, and diverse potentialities of 
growth. But such a condition could not continue in face of cir- 
cumstances so favorable for their progress. "These interwoven 
personalities became incompatible in course of growth, and as 
each one of us can live but one life, a choice must perforce be 
made."^ And the Indo-Aryans made their choice. It was not, 
however, a mere haphazard choice. All the dominant elements 
of their civilization we find in a nascent state in their unspecial- 
ized childhood life which they exhibit in the Rig Veda. The 
small, simple rites which later became transformed into compli- 
cated sacrifices lasting for years, the child-like enquiring atti- 
tude that developed itself into a speculative mood, and in fact the 
seed for all the tendencies that developed could be found in the 
Rig Veda civilization. Only, it was planted in the soil that fed 
unevenly the different roots of the growing tree, with the result 
that some of its branches bore profuse foliage and fragrant 
flowers while others were undernourished and decayed. The 
mental evolution of the Indo-Aryans was indeed unique, but, 
as we have said before, the uniqueness and abnormality consist 
in the accentuation and exaggeration of certain normal phases 
of human character to the detriment of certain others equally 
normal and necessary for the healthy growth of man. Whatever 

^Bergson, Creative Evolution, chap. II, pp. 90-91. 



41 

tendencies the Indo-Aryans undertook to develop they tried to 
carry to perfection ; and whatever others they neglected, they 
never found any occasion to attend to. 

Why human beings, when they enjoy the blessings of vigor 
and leisure, turn to philosophy and knowledge is a metaphysical \ 
question which we do not propose to answer. We take it for ' 
granted that the pursuit of knowledge and culture is a native 
potentiality of humanity and that it will unfold and assert itself 
whenever opportunity arises. The dominant type of the Indo- 
Aryans who were destined to guide the stream of thought of the 
masses asked themselves under conditions of leisure and surplus 
energy a very pertinent question. What is most worth while in J 
life, and what is most permanently valuable? Had ne"cessity 
called for competition either with unkind nature or a cruel neigh- 
bor, the answer would have been different, but here was a com- 
plete freedom from the economic and political burden of life. 
Therefore they found their reply in the conviction of the use- 
lessness and transitoriness of worldly surroundings and the 
permanent worth of heavenly bliss. By their deep meditation on 
life and cosmos they decided that nothing in this world was of 
permanent value — worldly goods were perishable, the human 
body full of filth and a mere link in the great chain of life that 
connects the individual soul with the universal soul, the home of 
eternal bliss, the final destination of man and of all matter living 
and not living. To reach that destination must be the highest 
goal of the ambition of every man. And one should exert 
oneself to the uttermost to push forward to that goal. What- 
ever sectarian dift"erences existed as to the manner of reaching 
the goal, there was unanimous agreement on the transitoriness ') 
of human existence, the worthlessness of worldly goods, and > 
the ^necessity of freedom from the misery of life and deathj' 
This is essentially a pessimistic philosophy so far as this life is 
concerned. If all the joys in thisjife are but an illusion and 
oftentimes stand only as an obstacle in the forward path towards 
the original home of bliss, what boots it whether or not one has 
worldly possessions and worldly honors ? Was this pessimistic 
philosophy an outcome of the development of the pathopsycho- 
logical tendencies of which we spoke a little while ago? If we 
look to its erotic and pessimistic phase we may be reasonably 
inclined to such a conclusion. What shall we say of a mind that 
looks only upon the drawbacks and pitfalls of human life, a 



42 

mind that broods over nothing but the decay and filth that are 
necessarily associated with human life?^ It is a mind that we 
may say is developing a philosophy suitable only to an age of 
decadence. If the process of evolution having pursued its full 
course should confront dissolution, nothing would be more cor- 
rect and consoling than the pessimistic Indian philosophy that 
pities life and dwells on its ignorance of its inherent elements of 
decay. But such a philosophy, whatever may be its ultimate 
worth to humanity, was entirely unsuited to develop a vigorous 
national life. 

The character of the major interests of the Indo-Aryans was 
thus formed and the direction of their major activities thus 
determined. What havoc this choice made and in what con- 
fusion of political, social and economic life it resulted we shall 
in course of time make clear. 

An important phase of this development directing the Indo- 
Aryan mind to intangible goals was that the process hit princi- 
pally the entrepreneur type of the community. It is well known 
that some of the most daring speculations in Indian philosophy 

^"In this decaying body, made of bones, 
Skin, tendons, memlsranes, muscles, blood, saliva, 
Full of putrescence, and impurity. 
What relish can there be for true enjoyment? 
In this weak body, ever liable 
To wrath, ambition, avarice, to illusion. 
To fear, grief, envy, hatred, separation 
From those we hold most dear, association 
With those we hate ; continually exposed 
To hunger, thirst, disease, decrepitude. 
Emaciation, growth, decline, and death. 
What relish can there be for true enjoyment? 
The Universe is tending to decay. 
Grass, trees and animals spring up and die. 
But what are they? Beings greater still than 
Gods, demigods and demons, all have gone. 
But what are they? For others greater still 
Have passed away, vast oceans have dried. 
Mountains thrown down, the polar star displaced, 
The cords that bind the planets rent asunder. 
The whole earth deluged with a flood of water, 
Even the highest angels driven from their state ; 
In such a world what relish can there be 
For true enjoyment? Deign to rescue us; 
Thou only art our refuge, holy Lord. 



Living in such a world I seem to be 
A frog abiding in a dried up well." 

Sir Monier-Williams' Indian Wisdom, 3rd ed., p. 47. 

Translated from the Maitrayani Upanishad of the Black 
Yajur Veda. 



43 

are ascribed to the members of the military caste* — the true 
entrepreneurs of the rehgious-military stage of social evolution. 
The men whose main business it was to fight and conquer and 
persecute in the process of evolution were themselves perse- 
cuted by the haunting ghost of the mystery of life. They wanted 
to know the origin of the universe and the destiny of man. 
Under the influence of this reflective tendency they developed 
a humane spirit far excelling any to be found in the history of 
other national cultures. Arjuna,^ a brave hero, mourns the fact 
that he has to kill human beings in battle in order to get posses- 
sion of worldly goods that were after all not a worthy goal of 
human endeavor. After the famous battle between the Pan- 
davas and Kauravas we find Yudhisthira, the victor in battle and 
heir to the throne, disgusted at the carnage of men in that war 
and ashamed of the victory obtained at such a sacrifice of human 
life and sorrow to women and children. He wanted neither the 
kingdom nor the glory of the battle, but wished to retire to the 
woods and practice penance for his sins.® To him this bloody 
victory at the cost of human life and sorrow was rather a 
source of deep humiliation than a cause for joy. How many 
victors in the battles of the Western world ever think of the 
miseries of their enemies or the sorrow of their wives and 
children? Manu and other sacred law givers enjoined the kings 
not to use poisonous weapons in battles nor practice unnecessary 
cruelties upon their enemies,^ or take undue advantage of their 
weak position. Such a course was unworthy of an Aryan. 

The most detrimental feature, however, of this humane 
spirit was the development on the part of Indian princes of a 
suicidal attitude towards territorial aggrandizement and polit- 
ical consolidation.^ You may conquer a king, advised the Sacred 
Law, but do not deprive the poor fellow of his kingdom unless 
absolutely obliged to do so, and in that case turn over the king- 
dom and its management to some near relative^ of the conquered 
prince. Prior to the conquest of Alexander, to build large 
empires was not, therefore, an ideal goal of the Indian rajah. 

*R. C. Dutt, History of Civilization in Ancient India, Vol. i, p. g, 
2nd ed., 2 Vols., London ; and cf. R. Garbe, Philosophy of Ancient 
India, p. 57-85, Chicago, 1897. 

^Bhagavadgita, chap. I. 

"Qantiparva Mahabharata-Adhaya, I. 

'Manu, VII, 90-93. 

^Ihid., VII, 211. 

^Ibid., VII, 202. 



44 

The Sacred Law moreover advised him to withhold from reck- 
less fighting if victor}^ was in doubt^° and to secure peace b)^ 
means of treaty, tribute, or even surrender. Imagine the result 
of such an attitude on the part of rival kingdoms upon the politi- 
cal framework of India ! And as the curtain rises on the politi- 
cal history of India, we find in consequence thousands of king- 
doms and principalities existing side by side without either great 
friction or co-operation. Their energies were bent on the con- 
quest of eternal bliss and their humane spirit forbade them to 
molest their fellow men. Imagine the inherent weakness of 
political life built on such an attitude ! 

This humanistic tendency is one of the most unique and ad- 
mirable characteristics of the Indo-Aryan mind. Nowhere in 
the world do we find so high a regard for the feelings and con- 
venience of others as in the India of the Indo-Aryan period. 
The spirit was not confined to the educated, but had permeated 
the very heart of the masses and had become of the essence of 
their character. We find its full expression in the Law of Piety 
of Gautama Buddha. The administration of justice was based 
upon this spirit and the punishment for a crime was to be severer 
or milder according to the ability of the criminal to^ bear it. The 
king was to be the father of his subjects and was to treat them 
as his children. He was to collect taxes in such a manner as not 
to cause them undue hardship. Even Chanakya, the Machiavelli 
of India, in his schemes to amass revenues and strengthen 
the treasury of the state enjoins upon his tax collectors that 
crooked means for getting funds should be used only against the 
wicked people^^ of the kingdom under the emergency of meeting 
unexpected situations. Whatever rapacities the Indian Rajahs 
practiced on their subjects in the later stages of Indo-Aryan 
history, it should be remembered that these occurred after the 
distintegrating forces from the outside world had set in and a 
process of readjustment to new environment had begun. There 
are many able scholars who are very fond of comparing the mis- 
rule and exorbitant tax systems of the native rajahs with the 
more virtuous administration of the British rule. But they fail 
to see that they are comparing the policies of one party during 
a period of readjustment to a policy under a settled system of 

^"Ibid., VII, 212-214. 

"See Mr. Shamshastry's translation in Indian Antiquary, vol. 34, 
p. 115 et seq. 



45 

government of another party. A fair comparison would be 
between the British rule in India between the years 1757 and 
1857 ^nd the administration of Indian princes during this period 
of condemned misrule. 

Whatever the merit of the humanistic spirit as an ultimate 
goal of the evolution of man's character, it is sufficient for our 
purpose to point out here that it was developed prematurely in 
reference to the rest of humanity and as such was destined to 
bring in disastrous consequences. 

The aim of life of those who were leaders in thought and 
action being fixed upon heavenly bliss, ways and means were de- 
veloped to attain that goal. Among the developments along this 
line we shall now speak of sacrifices and ceremonies. There 
were three reasons why sacrifices were raised to such high emi- 
nence and assumed such complex forms in India. In the first 
place sacrifice, we must remember, is one of the oldest of 
human institutions — going back to the very beginnings of human 
history. The Soma sacrifice can be clearly traced back to the 
Indo-Iranian period.^- Sacrifice had, therefore, what we may 
call the momentum of start. Secondly, we should recognize the 
importance of coincidence in the relation between sacrifice and 
success in war. The Indo-Aryans made it a practice to offer 
public sacrifices and to invoke the assistance of their gods before 
going to the battlefield, and their unqualified success over the 
first Dasyus they came across led them to believe in the thorough 
efficacy of the power of sacrifice to secure for them the aid of their 
gods. Later we find them believing that they could even com- 
pel gods to their wills by means of faultless sacrifices. The effect 
of such a coincidence upon the minds of as young a people as 
the Aryans should be kept in mind when judging of their appar- 
ently irrational belief in sacrifice and ceremony as a remedy for 
all evils and as an instrument of all achievements. Sir Walter 
Bagehot has well observed the relation of such chance coinci- 
dences to the fixed notions of a community.^^ Third, there is a 
process which works in the course of the development of all 
human institutions and ideas and by which an insignificant be- 
ginning grows into a complex structure under the influence of 
changed times and environments. What I mean may be well 
illustrated by what happened to the Greek Dromean rite which 

"Professor Eggeling's translation of (^atapatha Brahmanna, Vol. 12, 
of the Sacred Books of the East, Introduction, p. xv. 
"Physics and Politics, p. 131. 



40 

in the beginning was a simple initiation ceremony. In a later 
period of Greek history we find that it has assumed the form of 
the elaborate spring festivities — Dithyramb and Olympic con- 
tests.^* What was originally meant for a simple realistic rite 
now gave opportunity to the Greek people to hold a festival and 
thus became a means for the outlet for their surplus energies. 
Recreation and amusement are among the principal outlets for 
the surplus energy of primitive peoples, and it was no wonder 
that an occasion for public gathering, such as the initiation 
ceremony, should have been transformed into a public festival. 
The Indian public sacrifices, over and above their religious 
features, had also assumed such a festive character. 

After the notion was once formed that sacrifice was powerful 
enough to yield any object of desire it was of course used as an 
instrument to accumulate religious merit. The sacrifice, more- 
over, worked double wonders. It gave religious merit and it also 
gave material prosperity and in that material prosperity it gave 
power to perform more sacrifices. ^^ We can get a little idea of 
the powerful influence of this institution over the mind of the 
Indian people if we bear in mind the fact that some sacrifices 
such as Rajasuya and Ashwamedha grew into such complicated 
ceremonies that they lasted over years, and princes and nobles 
are known to have spent their fortunes in their proper perform- 
ance. We have anecdotes of Indian princes who became beggars 
through having lavished their wealth as Dakshina upon Brahmans 
who performed sacrifices. These sacrifices needed the services 
of hundreds of skilled experts well trained in the art of building 
the altar fire, pronouncing the syllables of the hymn with the 
right accent, and attending to the thousand and one details of 
the ceremony; for even a slight mistake offended the gods very 
highly and the ceremony in that case had to be repeated all over 
again. In the demands of the Roman priests for the exact per- 
formance of sacrificial ceremonies we find a parallel to the sacri- 
ficial developments in India, with this difference, that in Rome 
the emperor controlled the sacrificers, whereas in India the sac- 
rificers compelled the kings to obedience. The Indian sacrifice 
was not merely a public ceremony. The king had to have a 
house priest who performed the daily sacrifices for him. 
Daily sacrifices were prescribed also for all householders. They 

"Jane Ellen Harrison, Themis, chap. IV. 

"Catapatha Brahmanna. Kanda I, Adhaya VIII, Br. I, 32-36. 



47 

had to perform numerous domestic rites and ceremonies if they 
wanted to live a correct Hfe and accumulate religious credit. 
This, of course, everyone wanted to do. There were from forty 
to sixty of these rites and ceremonies that had to be performed 
by a householder from birth to death, some of them being re- 
peated daily and others only periodically. 

With the growing importance of sacrificial ceremonies and 
domestic rites of necessity arose those who could perform these 
functions satisfactorily in a manner acceptable to the gods, i. e., 
without committing mistakes in details. Even in the early days 
of their expansion towards the east beyond the Panjab the Indo- 
Aryans fighting on the frontier left some amongst them to per- 
form the sacrifices in order to insure victory in war with the 
non-Aryans. These men in the meantime made the ceremony 
more elaborate, added more recitations, and eventually claimed 
that none but they could oflfer these sacrifices in a correct fashion 
so as to bring the desired fruit. They claimed to be experts on 
such matters and made a still more presumptuous claim that none 
but those of their own flesh and blood^" could fill that role. A 
great controversy arose over this claim to spiritual supremacy 
and blood superiority.^^ The claim was sustained only after 
a hard struggle between these experts and the fighting nobility. 
The vivid realism of the Aryan belief in the efficacy of sacrifice 
in securing success in war and attaining prosperity in peace 
paved the way for this epoch-making stage in the mental evolu- 
tion of the Indo- Aryan people. A struggle between priesthood 
and nobility was not an incident peculiar to Indo- Aryan history. 
Similar incidents occurred in Rome, and the secularization of 
politics forms one of the most brilliant chapters of the history 
of Western nations.^® The trap which the Western kings 
escaped by circumstances of favorable environment the Indian 
princes were caught in by an opposite turn of events. Once the 
claim established that blood and spiritual qualifications were 
necessary to fit a person to offer sacrifices it was but a short step 
to arrange the gradations of such fitness based on heredity and 
degrees of spiritual purity. The concept of spiritual purity has 

"For an excellent treatment of the relation between caste and race, 
see Baine's Ethnology, pp. 1-29. Also Ketker's History of Caste, 
Stuttgart, 1912. 

"Zimmer, p. 196-197. 

'^See "Secularization of Western Politics,'' a doctor's dissertation by 
C. C. Eckhardt, presented to the Faculty of Political Science, Cornell 
University, 1908. 



48 

played an important role in the history of caste in India and has 
given rise to an elaborate system of observances and penances 
in order to insure its preservation. Only a Brahman was fit to 
take part in the sacrificial oft'ering, but not every Brahman ; those 
only who had not violated any of the rules of their profession 
and who had not fallen from their status of purity and spiritual 
elevation. The manner of living from birth till death from 
morning until night had been prescribed for them by the 
Shastras. They could eat only certain kinds of food and dress 
only in a certain manner. Intermarriage with members of the 
military class and other castes was not absolutely forbidden, 
but children from such marriages formed a separate caste 
whose spiritual status was determined by the sacred law accord- 
ing to the caste of the wife. The occupations by which a Brah- 
man could make his living were also prescribed, and while other 
occupations were permitted in times of distress they could be 
followed only at the risk of being excluded from his originally 
exalted status. Such Brahmans disqualified themselves as 
guests at certain sacrificial rites. ^'^ 

The Aryans were fast enlisting the vast masses of the civil- 
ized Dravidians under their religious standard. Room had to 
be made for these new converts in the Aryan scheme of spiritual 
hierarchy. All black men, all Anaryas, were not ^udras as is 
sometimes believed. According to their status of wealth and 
political precedence they occupied different places in this scheme. 
The lowest and most ignorant classes formed the Q'udra or 
working class and the captured aborigines were made domestic 
slaves. Whatever distinction wealth and social recognition con- 
fer on a family in the West, the same was conferred on a caste 
in India on account of its spiritual superiority. This com- 
petition for social recognition on the basis of spiritual superi- 
ority kept the proud groups from mixing promiscuously with 
one another. The later ramification of the caste system, repre- 
senting differences of occupation, locality, race, and tribal 
affinities hinged upon this central pivot of recognition in the 
scheme of spiritual and social hierarchy. Those Dravidians, 
whose claims to be Brahmans and Kshatriyas were granted 
either as a matter of political expediency or in return for finan- 
cial gain, became men of higher caste than the members of 
the Vaishya caste of the Aryan blood. Thus by caste a black 

"Manu, III, 150-156. 



49 

Brahman of Madras or Bengal is higher than a Panjabi or 
Maratha Kshatriya, though the latter are racially superior, i. e., 
if we insist upon ascribing racial superority to peoples accord- 
ing to their affinity to the white blood. Then there were the 
mixed castes whose status hinged on somewhat uncertain and 
ill-defined caste boundaries and for them to secure a little higher 
status than another community of mixed type was merely a mat- 
ter of asserting their superiority and gaining recognition of it 
from the people. 

The superiority of caste, then, is not necessarily based upon 
superiority of race, though such may actually be the fact in 
many cases ; the spiritual superiority of the Brahmans of Aryan 
blood had been emphasized from the very first.^° The mixed 
castes by change of locality must have been constantly ascend- 
ing to higher levels, but even then how is it that we find in 
India some traces of the black Dravidian blood in the highest 
of castes ? My hypothesis is as follows : From a mixed marriage 
between a white Aryan and a black Dravidian by the Mendelian 
law of heredity some children must have been born with an 
absolutely white complexion, and as the Dravidians are a race 
in physiognomy of a Caucasian type, these children may have 
found easy entrance into the castes of Aryan blood. Manu 
warns us to beware of the low caste man who resembles an 
Aryan in appearance and tells us that the status of such a per- 
son can be easily ascertained from his occupation.-^ Many 
Aryan families must have been in this manner confronted 
with racially dififering progeny, for if either the wife or the 
husband was a pseudo-Aryan, they could produce a black child 
of Dravidian race by the process of atavism. Biological 
science had not then made sufficient advancement to tell the 
Aryans that an apparently white Aryan could bear a child of 
another race. Again, the spirit of humanitarianism had been 
constantly growing in India. This spirit had created sympathy 
in the Indo-Aryan mind for all living beings, and the people had 
already begun to look upon the entire living creation of God as 
one family and consequently no distinction on race grounds 
alone could stand. ^^ The only differences they could see between 
living beings were those of spirituality and were based upon 

^"Baine's Ethnology, p. 15. 
='Manu, X, 40. 

"The culmination of this spirit had found its expression in the 
Law of Piety of Buddha. 



50 

their good and bad actions in former births. It was for this 
reason that caste was to keep aloof from caste, a necessary 
precaution to retain spiritual standing. This brings us to the 
well-known doctrine of transmigration of souls of which I shall 
speak presently. I must meanwhile emphasize that the caste 
prejudice in India is not a color or a race prejudice. A white 
complexioned Brahman will more cheerfully marry an absolutely 
black and homely girl of his own caste than accept a fair and 
beautiful damsel from a lower caste, perhaps racially even 
superior to himself. This absence of color prejudice is one of 
the most valuable assets India possesses today for her future 
economic and political regeneration, for if we can break the 
caste system this absence of color prejudice will speedily lead 
in spite of race differences to the formation of a one-race nation 
out of the present racially heterogeneous population of India. 
It will be a pity if by contact with the civilized western nations 
our young men learn the charm of color prejudice. Unfor- 
tunately many young men have already begun to taste that 
poison and I have within my knowledge instances of our young 
men who have studied in the United States and who have gone 
back to India with intense contempt for black skin, and with 
the intention of accentuating the caste spirit in order to pre- 
serve the purity of the so-called Aryan blood, of which there 
is really very little to be found in India. ^^° 

Caste meant discrimination on a basis of spiritual standing, 
which came to be determined by the mere fact of birth. It 
seems strange that the spirited and energetic Aryan and Dra- 
vidian population should have tamely submitted to such a sys- 
tem of baseless distinction. We must remember, however, that 
the major stream of Indian thought was now bent to the exclu- 
sion of all else on obtaining heavenly bliss — worldly goods were 
perishable and worldly honors hollow sounds. Moreover, Brah- 
mans alone held the key to the secret of salvation and they alone 
being in direct touch with the divine spirit could correctly in- 
terpret the meaning of human existence. In such an attitude 
of mind it was easy to fall a victim to the fatalistic doctrine of 
Transmigration of Souls. This doctrine declared that every 
man's lot in this life was determined by his actions in the past 
life and it was in vain for him to complain of and aspire to the 
benefits which others enjoyed. The best he could do was to 

"'See supra, p. i8, chap. I, note 4. 



51 

live this life correctly according to the duties prescribed for his 
caste and thus pave the way for a position in a higher caste in 
the next birth. If he was defective or poor or miserable in this 
life it was all the fault of his own actions in a bygone life and 
he could improve his future only by good actions in this life — 
especially by accumulating religious merit. Many devices were 
offered him by which he could make such accumulations and 
get higher up. Such a doctrine at once explained all incompati- 
bilities in life and tended to reconcile all castes to their respective 
positions by birth. What could be a more inviting philosophy 
of life than to feel that one could not help what had happened 
in the past, and how consoling to feel that one could positively 
improve one's future by living a correct present ! The easy life 
conditions and the lack of economic and political competition 
made the birth of any other doctrine unnecessary. Further, the 
fatalistic aspect of this doctrine well fitted the pessimistic frame 
of the Indo-Aryan mind. The doctrine of Karma if correctly 
interpreted is not very harmful. One of our most modern philo- 
sophical doctrines holds that in our present our entire past is 
unmistakably and unerringly stored by nature, and our only 
hope for improving our future lies in our conduct in the present. 
In the goal of life, however, the two philosophies differ. We 
aim at developing and unfolding the human personality, whereas 
the doctrine of Karma aims at accumulating religious merit 
and obtaining a better birth. The practical use of the new doc- 
trine lies in the hope it gives for the life we live at present. 
The Karma doctrine maintains that the fate of our present life 
is sealed and that it is of no use trying to change it. All you can 
do is to make preparations for the next birth. Imagine the 
effect of such a view of life on the spirit of initiative of the 
people who came under its influence ! 

The hard and fast philosophy of the doctrine of Karma and 
the obligatory restrictions and duties of caste were not suited 
for the more reflective and restless souls. The complete liberty 
of action that comes through knowledge was their happy lot. 
They declared that while the caste duties, sacrificial rites, and 
other slow ways to go higher up towards the Universal Soul 
were all very well suited for the ordinary folks, there was a path 
extraordinary, though difficult, by which exceptional individuals 
could trangress all limitations of caste and ties of Karma ajid 
soar direct to the home of eternal bliss. This path was nothing 



52 

less than that of knowledge. Knowledge was the one direct way 
of absorbing oneself into the Universal Soul without making use 
of the step-ladder of birth by Karma. For Karma simply 
meant another life and that meant more Karma and still an- 
other life and so on in an endless chain of life and death. 
Knowledge alone could relieve one from the wheel of Karma. 
To know God is to be God, and if your qualifications can fit 
you to make the direct daring dash you can do nothing better 
than to rid yourself of all attachment to things of this life and 
contemplate with concentrated mind the eternal Essence until 
you experience it. And when you succeed the eternal joy is 
yours. This was an attractive ideal and worked like a charm on 
the minds of the more energetic and ambitious youth of India, 
and Indo-Aryan literature is full of evidence showing that the 
major attention of the best amongst the population was absorbed 
in solving the problems of the destiny of man and the aim of 
human existence. By introspective analysis these thinkers dis- 
covered desire as the source of all evil. The chain of causation 
was as follows. Desire brought action, action determined 
Karma, and Karma meant perpetual life and death. Therefore, 
kill desire, kill action the source of all misery, and you break 
the otherwise endless chain of life and death and all the misery 
and sorrow that go with it. How was this to be accomplished ? 
Of course through knowledge of God. But this was not pos- 
sible for all human beings. Therefore, those who were not 
fit for the Path of Knowledge could perform actions in this life 
that Avould give them a better birth in the next life and qualify 
them to undertake such adventures. Such was the dominant 
trend of thought of the moulders of the Indian social mind. 
In tune with this strain political and economic life was neglected 
or rather maintained merely up to a necessary minimum so as 
to enable them to prosecute this aim. Under the influence of 
this attitude towards life arose the famous systems of Indian 
philosophy, a very brief epitome-^ of the subject matter of which 
I must present here in order to acquaint the reader with the 
inner working of the Indian mind. 

The Upanishads had concluded that the individual soul 
was part and parcel of the Universal Soul. Kapila, the 
founder of the Samkhya philosophy, objected to this doctrine 

"^This Summary of the Systems of Indian Thought is based upon 
chap. IV of Macdonell's Literary History. 



53 

and propounded a dualistic philosophy which maintained that 
two things only existed without a beginning and without an 
end. They were matter on the one hand and an infinite plu- 
rality of souls on the other hand. The object of his writings 
was to explain the relation of these two primary categories. 
The existence of a supreme God is denied and of course evi- 
dently inadmissible in such a philosophy. The unconscious 
matter of nature contains within itself power of evolution, and 
Karma of souls determined the course of this evolution. 
Samkhya philosophy as propounded by Patanjali admits of a 
personal God who was introduced into it in order to invite 
popularity. This new interpretation particularly aimed to ex- 
plain a new manner of experiencing God. This was the famous 
but much misunderstood theory of Yoga. It included bodily 
purification by means of bathing, breathing, fasting and other 
devices, control over the physical body by the practice of difficult 
gymnastic feats, and development of mental concentration by 
resort to retired places. This spirit of asceticism played quite 
an important role in India in times of Buddhism and Jainism 
and was in fact the main-stay of these two religions. Even 
today we find in India people who believe that Yoga practice 
confers supernatural power on man. Nyaya philosophy, an- \^ 
other system of Indian thought, sought to attain an understand- 
ing of God by methods of logic and inference, and declared 
atoms to be the origin of the world. The non-dualistic Vedanta 
doctrine postulated that the multiplicity of phenomena in this 
world was mere illusion and due to innate ignorance. To know 
that the universal appearances are nothing but mirages to this 
ignorance and to experience the unity of soul and God is the 
true Salvation. This experience comes of course through 
knowledge that is revealed in Upanishads. The materialistic 
school of Charvaka was strictly pragmatic and refused to be- 
lieve any authority save that of actual experience through per- 
ception. And as senses could perceive matter only, matter was 
the one reality in the universe. Soul was merely an attribute 
which perished with the body. Nothing existed for them that 
transcended the senses. Hell was earthly pain and salvation 
consisted in the dissolution of the body. "While life remains, 
let a man live happily, let him feed on ghee (clarified butter) 
even though he run into debt; when once the body becomes 
ashes how can it ever return again?" 



J 



54 

The philosophy that has the greatest hold on the Indian 
mind today is represented by the more eclectic teachings of 
Krishna in Bhagavadgita. This discourse of Krishna, am- 
biguous as it appears, now emphasizing the necessity of active 
life, now renouncing all action and extolling knowledge, and 
again praising Yoga, is really an attempt to reconcile the various 
systems of Indian thought and various methods of obtaining 
salvation. The essence of this philosophy is to follow that 
course in life for which you are best fitted. If you must lead 
this worldly life for the sake of duty, perform all your commit- 
ments zealously without being too engrossed in the results of 
your actions. Such performance of the ordinary duties of life 
without an attachment to their fruit is as effective in gaining 
the higher stage as though you were following the higher path 
of knowledge and Yoga. 

All these philosophical systems flourished for that one pur- 
pose — the discovery of the meaning of life and the aim of 
existence. The leading thought that has left a final impression 
on the Indian mind is represented as we just said by the teach- 
ings of Krishna. In Bhagavadgita we are urged to follow any 
path from the worship of idols and deities to the means of 
knowledge according to our ability and position by birth, but 
to have only one goal before our eyes and that is to approach 

Him. 

If 

Such were the forces under which the Indian social mind 
was gradually formed. The development of humanistic tend- 
encies had made the Indian attitude very sympathetic towards 
all living beings, yet in these ideas of unequal spiritual purity 
was the birthplace of the apparently cruel caste system. The 
goal of their major interest in life and the direction of their 
major activity were now determined. It is only those who have 
a thorough knowledge of the psychology of the Indian mind 
who can appreciate the powerful force with which this charm 
worked upon it. The king and the beggar alike were zealous 
for the attainment of that one goal. The entire surplus energy 
of the masses as well as that of the leaders was now being used 
in the piling up of religious merit. This was the one basis of 
the unity of the heterogeneous population of India. This was the 
one sentiment by which the entire population could be aroused 
to action. It was on the strength of this sentiment that Shiva ji 
and Nanasahib wielded their influence and retained their fol- 



55 

lowing — a flimsy basis for a political framework. Just as two 
thinking American citizens coming together will discuss a live 
political issue or talk of business conditions, or two American 
young ladies will comment on styles, even so we find the men 
and women in India of this period seriously discussing the re- 
ligious merit or demerit of a particular act or ceremony. We 
now find a devout Indian woman offering to a deity one million 
flowers or leaves of a particular kind of plant, to execute which 
performance required the patient industry of many of her 
friends and relatives, as the counting had to be very exact, 
and in case of mistakes the merit of the offering was lost. 
We find a prince squandering his fortune on a sacrifice ; a Yogi 
practicing severest austerities and mental concentration ; private 
worship and public festivals of various deities and observances 
of various rules laid down by the Brahman experts, or anything 
else that could give the devout a little advantage in their path 
upward or place a little more credit to their account with 
Chaitanya or a little better recommendation for a birth with 
more powerful personality in the next life ; so that they could 
follow the path of knowledge and at last experience that Es- 
sence of Essence, the Universal Soul, and be finally relieved 
from the pangs of life and birth and death and all the attendant 
sorrow and misery. 

Such was the main stream of thought of the Indian mind, 
and just as the Western mind constantly worries over ways and 
means to meet its bills and financial responsibilities, the one 
overwhelming anxiety of the Indian mind was this necessity of 
settling its score with its deities and gods. Just as volumes 
could be written in merely describing the various occupations 
economic men engage in to secure small and large incomes, in 
a similar fashion innumerable methods may be mentioned that 
were devised by the Indian mind, from the worship of stone 
idols to the practice of the highest Jnana Yoga, to secure small 
and large spiritual gains. However absurd and irrational the 
spiritual merits of the idol worship, the daily bath, the abstinence 
from eating meat and drinking liquor, the innumerable fasts and 
festivities and modes of mental concentration may appear to the 
Western mind, to the Indian mind it was an absolutely sound 
logic. "As the many rivers finally enter one ocean, even so the 
many paths finally converge to that one goal — the Knowledge of 



56 

God."^^ Such was the trend of thought of the leadership type — 
authors of the creative activities of a nation. The more ambi- 
tious and energetic a man was, the more zealous he became to 
pursue heavenly bliss by a difficult path, with the result that the 
best amongst them left home and worldly life and in their zeal 
for pursuing this wild goose chase left no progeny. The lesser 
type of entrepreneurs, though they Sid not become physically 
lost, became ineffective economic agents under the influence 
of the thought of their dead leaders. 

Was it a wonder that under the influence of such an atti- 
tude towards life the political and economic activities were en- 
tirely neglected? They were maintained only up to a neces- 
sary minimum. The Chakravartin ruled the princes, but left 
kingdoms to their own absolute management. The princes 
ruled the people, but left them to themselves in the management 
of their villages and provincial affairs. It was not that the 
Indian princes allowed the village communities their self-rule 
because they were democratic in spirit, but it was because they 
did not care for centralization nor did they feel a necessity 
for such a procedure. 

Thus rolled the main stream of Indian thought in the direc- 
tion we have now outlined and it rolled in that direction with- 
out disturbance for so many centuries that finally it has be- 
come something like a "fixed idea" in the mind of a psychopath. 
The Indian mind was hypnotized by the charm of a spiritual 
goal, and all the ways and means devised for the attainment of 
that goal also became "fixed ideas," in so rigorous a fashion 
that even a skilled physician fails to arrive at the correct diag- 
nosis of the case and is at his wits end when he dares conceive 
of a remedy that will bring about a rapid cure. 

^■'This verse forms part of the Daily Prayer of Brahmans. 



CHAPTER IV 

IN THK I^ETTIIRS OF SACRED LAW AND CUSTOM — POWE:rLI;SSNESS 
01? DISINTEGRATING FORCES 

If we keep in mind the main direction of the stream of 
Indian thought we will not be surprised to find why all other 
activities and forces in Indian life had to bend before this 
mighty monster and make way for him or at least to adjust 
themselves to a subordinate and useful place. We have seen 
that the root of all activities was declared to be desire — that 
produces action, which brings in Karma, the source of an ever- 
lasting chain of life and death and misery. The best course \ 
to follow would have been to renounce all desires, all actions, | 
and to resolve oneself into Universal Soul by a rapid passage over ) 
the Path of Knowledge. But such a course was not open to all, 
for only a few powerful minds could follow it. Most human 
beings must adopt the slower path, that is, must perform actions 
and lead a worldly life. Now actions were of two kinds, good 
and bad. Good actions helped the path onward, the bad ones 
compelled a retreat. The Sacred Law and Custom as pro- 
pounded by the Brahmans — who alone were in direct touch with 
the gods — professed to declare which actions were good and 
helped a man forward and which were sinful and obstructed 
his path. The life of the world was a reality to the masses 
Avhich these doctors of soul culture could not ignore. The 
order of the householder was the only economic prop of the 
other orders, on which they depended for their support. Hence 
action was a necessity. But if action was a necessity at all the 
best thing would have been to perform it without an attach- 
ment to its fruit. Performance of action in this manner created 
no Karma and left no stain, but, says Manu, nowhere in this 
world do we find a desire to engage in activities without an 
attachment to their fruit^ and therefore it is best that such 
actions should be prescribed as will bear good fruit and give j 
religious merit. To the Indian mind the fact of the good and 
bad fruit of an action was a vivid reality. This is why we 
find the Indian mind so enslaved to Sacred Law and Custom. 
An Indian will undertake no activity, will form no decision that \ 
is contrary to the sanction of Shastra. Shastra determined for 

^Manu, II, 3, 4. 



■ 58 

each man the entire range of his actions from morning till 
night, from birth until death. He had no choice but either to 
do what the Shastra commanded, or go to Hell, and no greater 
horror existed in Indian minds than that of going downward 
along the path to the horrible Hell. The duties of each caste, 
the manner of its worship, the occupation for its livelihood, its 
political, social, and moral obligations were all handed down 
to its members already made before they were born. The peo- 
ple were only too glad to get such directions. They had the 
satisfaction of feeling that they were doing the right thing and 
piling up religious merit. It was a Brahman only who could 
unfold the mystery of life and give them a guiding light for 
their correct conduct in this world and on all matters of even 
slightest detail in life, when in doubt, him they approached for 
advice. This is why the Brahman and the Brahmanical Law 
attained to such unparalleled eminence in India. It was the 
well baked attitude of the social mind which supported this 
hierarchy. The Indian now felt he could not get along without 
a Brahman. The Sacred Law- became a strong framework mto 
which every action of every member of every caste must fit. 
The Sacred Law prescribed the number of daily and periodical 
ceremonies for each caste and explained the manner of per- 
forming them. It outlined the conduct of a student, of a house- 
holder, of an ascetic ; declared what food was fit for each caste 
and prescribed the mode of their respective dress. Even the 
king's actions were hedged round by its Sacred Law. The king 
had to play a subordinate but useful role in the Brahmanical 
scheme of things. His main business was to grant peace to his 
subjects that they might perform their religious duties undis- 
turbed. He was also to see to it that the various castes kept 
within the boundaries of their duties and did not get mixed. He 
was advised to keep his mind controlled and to pay respect to the 
wise Brahmans. He was offered guidance in the appointment of 
his ministry, in matters of taxation, and in all state business. For 
Vaishyas the Sacred Law writers fixed the prices and wages and 
manner of purchase and sale. To the judges they disclosed the 
proper manner of administering justice and the scale of fines. 
Not a soul was born for the guidance of whose activities the 
Sacred Law had nothing to say. Not that this law was complied 
with to the letter or that it was uniform wherever Indo-Aryan 

^Manu, chap. VII. See also other law writers on duties of kings. 



59 

cultured dominated. It was perhaps not even written in the 
shape of a law book until centuries after its introduction. It ex- 
isted in the atmosphere of the social mind and in the heads of the 
Brahmans. But its spirit had a more powerful binding force 
than that of an order by a modern executive with the strength 
of an army and navy behind it. 

Whatever action a leading Brahman of a particular place 
prescribed as correct for the different castes tended to become 
the customs of that land, and it is here that we find the greatest 
m.ischief was done. Whatever custom was thus introduced in \ 
a particular territory or for a particular caste became by cen- 
turies of repetition a fixed habit with that community or caste \y^ 

even after the original purpose of the ruling had been totally i 
forgotten. Such in fact is the status of the innumerable com- : 
plexities of Indian customs today. They were at one time 
; rationally accounted for by the Indian social mind. Now they 
\ have become merely habits with no logic to support them, and 
\^ yet no force to uproot them. ' The history of a custom is much 
"Tike that of a biological species. It is most unstable when it 
originates and it becomes more and more fixed in age with ac- 
cumulation of permanent characteristics. Prohibition of inter- 
marriage between castes, ban on widow remarriage, prevalence 
of child marriage, the many ceremonies, festivals, and customs 
of social precedence can hardly be accounted for today by cor- 
rect logic. To us they appear irrational and we feel surprised 
to find that they continue to exist apparently without any occa- 
sion for them. But the force of custom is more powerful than 
that of reason. To the former the mind yields without an effort ; 
for a victory of the latter a struggle is imperative. 

Thus arose customs and institutions in India based on an 
accentuated religious life which undermined the politico-eco- 
nomic life of the Indian people. Centuries after centuries '-^ 
elapsed under this regime of the Brahmanical supremacy. How y 
very weakened it left the political and economic institutions and \^ 
how in the course of time they proved to be inadequate to meet 
the changed conditions and failed to preserve their integrity we 
shall presently see. We shall first get a little idea as to how 
deeply ingrained they have become in the Indian mind and how 
they are playing the part of second nature with the people of 
India even today. / 

During the twenty or more centuries that elapsed before 



6o 

the outside disintegrating forces began to come into India, time 
was gradually but unerringly inscribing her cumulative past upon 
the Indian mind and the cake of custom was slowly being baked 
and hardened. Today we find it very hard to break this cake. 
Dare an Indian social reformer suggest to an orthodox Indian 
even so insignificant a departure from his "settled rule" as the 
eating of a meal in company with a person of another caste, no 
matter how superior his race affiliations may be? Much less 
can he propose a remarriage of his widowed daughter, even 
though she happens to be but a child of 12 years of age. Our 
Indian college men may now charge me with ignorance of the 
change that has come about in the Indian spirit during recent 
years. At the same time I am aware that a Brahman who will 
not hesitate to eat in a Parsi or a Mohammedan restaurant 
will refuse to dine at the house of a Kayastha Prabhu or a 
Shenavi, members of castes not racially different from his own. 
The Indian college boy goes through a mental drill in his uni- 
versity career that changes little his attitude towards some of 
those "settled rules" of the Dharmashastra. How many Indian 
boys will dare marry a girl beyond their own caste in spite of 
their college education of which they seem to be so proud? 
How many parents in India will think of giving away their 
daughter to a boy of a lower caste no matter how superior 
physically and intellectually he may be to a boy of her own 
caste selected for her? Should a radical reformer dare trans- 
gress some of these "settled rules" he has to suffer the fate of 
an outcast. The Shastra says that the mixture of castes is the 
worst calamity that can happen to the world and moreover that 
it is a "settled rule." The "settled rule" of Shastra, crystallized 
into custom that has fed and fattened for centuries, transcends 
all logic and reason. Such is the tremendous adherence of the 
present Indian social mind to institutions that have checked 
progress. Eager as their leaders are for the political and eco- 
nomic regeneration of the country they dare not disturb the 
existing social order. They will attack the British government 
at the risk of getting imprisoned for life or show heroism in 
shooting perhaps a well meaning British officer at the risk of 
going to the gallows, but the monster "Settled Rule" they dare 
not even think of attacking. 

Manifold as the economic and political problems of India 
appear on the surface — like the many branches and millions of 



6i 

leaves of a great tree — their existence seems to be supported 
by a solid trunk grown out of strong and well-fed roots, which 
have by centuries of unchecked growth become deeply imbedded 
in the favorable soil in which they found themselves. So vigor- 
ous and well-rooted has this growth become that its uprooting 
appears to be an almost hopeless task to those who dare con- 
ceive of accomplishing such a feat. Fortunately with the pas- 
sage of time the nature of the soil itself on which this banyan- 
like growth feeds is changing and the mighty monster is find- 
ing it increasingly difficult to obtain its nourishment from its 
wonted sources. The chances are that in the course of time 
it will become so weakened that it may be either uprooted by 
one tremendous pull of a huge appliance (representing a mental 
crisis) or else be allowed to starve and die a slow death. -J 

How deeply imbedded this banyan-like growth had become 
even before any foreigners visited India" is well illustrated by 
the failure of so powerful a personality as that of Buddha to 
uproot some of these suicidal notions. We are not interested 
in Buddha from the standpoint of his philosophy. Its essential 
elements are to be found in Brahmanical philosophy. Buddha 
tried to eradicate among many other things the differences of 
cartes, but his teachings were in this respect an entire failure. 
This is even more significant in view of the fact that he did 
not attempt to change the main stream of the Indian thought 
that was deeply bent on salvation. In fact he confirmed it in 
that direction. He only tried to replace the old methods of 
achieving those results by new ones. But alas, by this time the 
logic of the Indian mind had already been subordinated to the 
"way of doing things they had fallen into." Brahmanism suc- 
ceeded against Buddhism in India not because the logic of Brah- 
manism was any sounder than that of Buddhism, but because it 
fitted better into the temper and habits of the people. Buddhism 
was the earliest and perhaps the most powerful disintegrating 
force to which the Indian institutions were subjected and they 
stood the test and proved their inviolability most effectively. 
Similar was the fate of the materialistic philosophy of Char- 
vaka; it arrived on the scene too late. 

Then came the Greek invasion of Alexander the Great (327 

^The earliest foreign invasion of India after the Indo-Aryan migra- 
tion is recorded as having taken place in 516 B. C. The expedition 
was sent by the Persian King Darius under the command of Skylax 
of Karyanda in Karia. Herodotus, 4 : 44. 



62 

B. C.) and from now on the forces of political disintegration 
began to come into India. Under the influence of its stimulus 
the powerful dynasty of Chandragupta was formed, which per- 
haps was the first large centralized government in India, having 
under its control all the territory between Himalaya and 
Vindhya. The finance minister of this prince was Chanakya, 
the author of the treatise called the Arthashastra (Science of 
Wealth). His system of administration aimed at the same 
efficiency in protecting state interests as the Cameralistic 
regime in Germany and the Mercantilists of France and Eng- 
land. This is very significant, as it shows the direction in which 
Indian institutions would have developed under pressure of 
proper environment. But the stimulus came too late. The 
Indian mind had been formed once for all. No system of gov- 
ernment, institutions, and laws can stand long or perpetuate 
themselves which are not backed by the sentiments of the 
people. After the reign of Asoka the kingdom fell. Such 
was the apathy of the people towards their political and eco- 
nomic life that none of the future political reconstructors of 
India was successful. Akbar, Shivaji, and Madhji Scindya, 
all failed in their turn when they tried to infuse a national life 
into the people of India. Their only hope lay in accomplish- 
ing this through the unity of religious sentiment in the Indian 
mind. In trying to preserve and make use of this sentiment 
they were fostering those very forces which are so detrimental 
to the formation of a national life in India. In making use of 
this spirit for their purpose they were building a political struc- 
ture on a flimsy foundation. This is our explanation of why 
these political leaders of India failed — not because they were 
incapable, or because they were products of a warm climate, or 
because they were members of a lower race, as many scholars 
would have us believe. It was simply a case of a hypnotized 
population that could not be awakened from its trance, and 
even today it still remains so hypnotized, at least with regard to 
its customs, if not to its attitude towards heavenly bliss. The 
only words of suggestion to which the people quickly responded 
were those that aroused their cherished religious sentiments. 
The watchword of the Moghul was Allah, of Shivaji, Harihar; 
and the basis of even the much heralded attempt of the re- 
bellion of 1857 was a religious prejudice against the foreigner 
and not a sentiment of national pride. The thrill that goes to 



63 

the heart of an American boy at the sight of his flag or the 
resentment which an EngHshman feels on learning of injury 
to the life or property of his countryman at the hands of a 
foreigner never disturbed the peace of the Indian mind. And 
as to religious sentiment serving as a basis for political unity, the 
enmity that exists between caste and caste in India is too 
well known to need any further comment. 

A scholar of international reputation once asked me a 
question, the sense of which was : If the present fixed atti- 
tude of the Indian social mind is a result of the teachings of 
some of your great teachers, can you not use the same methods 
for its disintegration and for reconstruction along new lines, 
i. e., will not the teachings of some great personality remove 
these prejudices and create in their place a new attitude? In 
the fate of teachings of as powerful a personality as that of 
Buddha, we find an efifective reply to this question and a speedy 
dismissal of such a proposal. It must be remembered that a 
powerful personality scores its triumphs on the popular mind 
only when it is in a state of indecision. But when popular 
notions are fixed, such a personality simply creates antagonism 
and suffers a defeat as was the fate of Buddha. And much 
work has to be done in India before such a state of indecision 
can be brought about and a mental crisis effected under the 
leadership of a master mind. 



CHAPTER V 

SOCIO-POLITICAI, AND ECONOMIC CONSE^QUENCEIS — BEGINNING OE 

EEEECTIVE DISINTEGRATION — EXPEOITATION — PROGRAM 

OE RECONSTRUCTION — METHODS AND MEANS 

Some amongst us, who thoroughly believe in the virtues of 
the Brahmanical social order, or see the whole mischief in the 
unfavorable influence of the British rule, or expect to find a 
panacea for all evils in India in the economic regeneration of the 
country, will accuse me of having overemphasized the de- 
structive force of Indo-Aryan institutions. We must dismiss 
the objections of such radicals as being unimportant for our 
purpose. Until now I have followed in a very general way 
the course of the Indo-Aryan mental evolution and indicated its 
disastrous as well as its beneficial consequences. Now I shall 
carry my analysis a little further and make the resulting prob- 
lems more specific with a view to suggesting directions along 
which our work of reconstruction should begin, the methods that 
we should follow in organizing our work, and the forces we 
should use in carrying out our program. 

In the three principal disastrous consequences which these 
developments wrought in the life of the people of India we find 
the three-fold directions along which our work of reconstruc- 
tion, which has already begun, must continue with increased 
vigor. These three consequences are as follows : 

First : Effects on Race Composition and Social Constitution. 

Second : Effects on Political Organization. 

Third : Effects on Economic Prosperity and Progress. 

In its effect on the race composition and social constitution 
we find its most suicidal character. The social stratification of 
the Dravidians was not based upon race or spiritual superiority, 
but on a strict precedence of wealth and political power. ^ The 
Aryans themselves came to India with no caste system, and un- 
der pressure of normal economic and political competition the 
inevitable result of the various races coming together would 
have been their complete fusion into a people with a sense of 
close consanguineal affinity throughout the entire population — 
something similar to what happened to the racial stocks that 
went to England or what is happening to the various European 

^Supra, pp. i8 and 21. 



65 

races that are coming into the United States. For the Dra- 
vidians were by no means a contemptible race and the Aryans 
might well have been proud to make blood alliances with them. 
In fact, some such process had already begun. But with the 
Brahmanical regime came the caste system, which checked the 
free working of that process and prevented a complete fusion 
of the various race elements. Though the caste system has 
failed to preserve the absolute blood purity of the Aryan stock, 
since it was an institution not based upon race differences pri- 
marily, but on spiritual superiority, it has succeeded in retaining 
enough physical differences between members of castes belong- 
ing to the various races to prevent the birth of a consanguineal 
consciousness of kind— a necessary preliminary to the birth 
of a vigorous national life. The worst consequence of the caste 
system is, however, the social differences it has created. We 
have already seen that in spite of the caste system the majority 
of the population of India today represents a mixture of the 
various races that have come into the country. It is true that 
the Aryan highest caste and the Dravidian lowest caste taken 
as a whole do represent race differences. But even in the high- 
est of Aryan castes we find , the Dravidian and Mongolian 
blood infiltrated in all degrees of mixture. The various high- 
caste Marathas do not differ racially and in many individual in- 
stances in Bengal, Madras, and the Maratha country, the proud 
Brahman and the lowest street scavenger hardly present much 
difference of race. Moreover, the Indian geographical environ- 
ment has put its common stamp upon all the racial stocks that 
inhabit it. The writer when in European dress has been fre- 
quently taken variously for a Bengali Babu, a Maratha Brah- 
man, a Parsi, a Mohamm.edan, and a Spaniard, even by his 
own countrymen, and strange enough, he, though a native of 
India, belongs to no one of these castes or sects. It is not at all 
uncommon to find our boys in England and the' United States 
asking each other their caste and provincial affiliation. What 
I aim to point out is that whereas considerable differences in 
physical appearance between different castes and people of dif- 
ferent provinces can be recognized, if they are observed en bloc, 
the race mixture in spite of the caste system and the geographic 
environment has run its course to the extent of making judg- 
ment difficult on the racial affiliation of any particular indi- 
vidual. It is not uncommon in India to find, in the same high 



66 

caste family, representatives of these various races, exhibiting 
a gradation of color from very dark to very white and fea- 
tures, from pure Aryan to dominantly Mongolian or Draviuian. 
Most unfortunately, the caste system prevented a smooth work- 
ing out of this process which had begun so well. But the check- 
ing of this process of race mixture was not the worst result of 
the caste system. Its effects on the social constitution were still 
more disastrous. The racial and cultural differences of the peo- 
ple of various provinces and castes of India may well be 
likened to the differences between the various nationalities of 
the Caucasian races of Europe, with perhaps this difference 
that in India the feeling of consanguinity is more distant, and 
enmity between caste and caste and province and province more 
acute, than is to be found amongst the various races and nation- 
alities of Europe. To an Indian a man of another province is 
practically a foreigner and a member of another caste often- 
times an enemy belonging to a rival corporation. 

The positive forces of the caste system and of the other 
religious institutions and the negative force of the neglect of 
political and economic life have thus accentuated consanguineal, 
cultural and linguistic differences among members of different 
castes and different provinces. It led to the formation in India 
of a heterogeneous mass of population — divided into over 3,000 
castes or communities of interests, with multifarious differences 
in speech, dress, customs and traditions. 

A certain feeling of consanguineal affinity, a consciousness of 
common culture, common tradition and common folk-lore, a 
similarity of manners and customs, and in fact the whole back- 
ground of life which creates, should occasion require, an inti- 
macy between the various members of a community — all these 
are necessary for a vivid realization of a national consciousness 
of kind. Is this to be found in Indian life ? What is there that 
forms a common background of the life of a Bengali, a 
Maratha, a Madrasi, a Panjabi, and a Sikh, except a vague 
feeling of religious unity which has proved its failure to sus- 
tain a sound political and economic structure ? By history, tra- 
dition, language, customs, manners and all those little and great 
elements that form a major content of human life, a Maratha, 
a Bengali, and a Madrasi are even more widely separated 
than they may seem to be by differences of physical appear- 
ance. A Maratha girl if married to a Bengali Babu under 



67 

the existing social order will feel about as much at home with 
her husband as she would were she married to an Englishman 
or an Arab, with whom she might feel even more at home 
should she have gone through a common school training with 
them. Her language, her manners, her mode of dress, in fact 
all the past contents of her life under present circumstances 
will make her a misfit in her new Bengali home. These are\ 
facts full of deep meaning and demand serious consideration \ 
at the hands of those of our men who are eager to serve their j 
country. They bid us go a little slowly in our program of j 
reform and reconstruction. The writer confesses that in spite \ 
of his education he feels more at home with a man from his ! 
own province, and even more so with a man of his own caste 1 
than with a member of any other province or caste in India./ 
The effects of a perverted social heredity accumulated in periods 
of centuries has created differences between people of various 
provinces which must first be removed and has created gap^-be- 
tween caste and caste that must be filled in before we can hope 
to realize our ideal of consanguineal and cultural unity. What 
pride can a Bengali or a Madrasi feel in the history of a 
Maratha who has tormented him in the past? What affinity can 
a Mohammedan feel with a Maratha who has been instrumental 
in bringing about his overthrow from power? We must there- \ 
fore first create a common culture and common tradition of 
which all of us — the Bengali, the Maratha, the Madrasi, the 
Panjabi, the Sikh, the Parsi, and the Mohammedan — can be 
equally proud. We must first eliminate all unnecessary points of ' 
dissimilarity between caste and caste and province and province 
that create in us a feeling of distantness. We must develop a 
common system of education that will create in us a common 
background of life — a common culture, a common language, a 
certain similarity of dress and manners, and above all on the 
part of each one of us an intelligent appreciation of our common 
position in the eyes of the world and a realization of our com- 
mon political and economic interests. These are the accom- 
plishments at which we must first aim before we can aspire 
to realize our higher political and economic goals. , A defective 
social order is as poor a soil to nurture vigorous political and 
economic institutions as an unsatisfactory government is to 
foster a happy and prosperous social order. ] These various 
phases of human life are mutually dependent on each other for 



68 

their harmonious development. The first plank of our platform 
^ of reconstruction in India is therefore to create a national life on a 
^ fj basis of consanguineal and cultural unity. If I may be pardoned 
for indulging in speculation, I can see a future India represent- 
ing a complete race mixture of the three principal racial stocks 
in the country, speaking a common language, perhaps English ; 
adopting a common dress, perhaps a modified European wear 
for the men and a modified Parsi wear for women; and sub- 
ordinating the religious life to the extent of making it a matter 
of private judgment and not a matter of public concern as it 
has been thus far.j This is a tremendous task, and only an 
Indian who has an immediate knowledge of the psychology 
that supports the present malformation can appreciate the 
burden of our problem. 

In recommending the abolition of the caste system and the 
creation of a consanguineal consciousness of kind — an almost 
necessary preliminary for the birth of a national self -conscious- 
ness — I realize that I shall meet opposition from those who 
doubt the wisdom of mixture of the various castes and races 
in India, lest the so-called superior Aryan blood, which has thus 
far been preserved by the caste system, may disappear; and 
we may have eventually a dominantly Dravidian population in 
India, representing an average lower racial type, since the Dra- 
vidian already constitutes by far the major part of the present 
population of India. I, therefore, oflr'er grounds on which we 
may not only dismiss such unwarranted fears of the lowering of 
race standard, but may hope for a still better race standard out 
of the mixture of the various race elements now within the 
country. 

In the first place, the Dravidians though of dark skin are 
in physiognomy very similar to the Caucasian races, and the dif- 
ference between the so-called Aryan castes and the Dravidian 
castes does not represent a wide^ race separation. What is still 

*Even where two so very widely separated races as the Anglo- 
Saxon whites and the negroes are being miscegenated, as in the 
Southern States of the United States, conclusive evidence is wanting 
to prove that the resulting projeny is either degenerate or sterile. We 
are even told that "the recognized leaders of the (negro) race are 
almost invariably persons of mixed blood" (even though it may be 
that) "the qualities which have made them leaders are derived cer- 
tainly in part and perhaps mainly from their white ancestors." See, 
"Negroes in United States," an article by Wlalter F. Willcox in Ency. 
Britan., nth ed., Vol. XIX, p. 345 et seq. Since writing the above, I 
am indebted to Professor Jackson for calling my attention to an article 



69 

more important, the Dravidians of India represent a very su- 
perior race element. Their history speaks for them. Prior to 
the coming of the Ar3^ans into India they had developed poHti- 
cal systems not dissimilar to the feudal institutions of the West- 
ern European races. We find the Dravidian freeman subordi- 
nate to the raja, a sort of manorial lord, and the latter paying 
homage to the central chief, the whole scheme representing a 
strongly centralized government based upon an efficient mili- 
tary organization. They had a culture independent of Aryan 
influence. It was the Aryans who stopped their further political 
progress by their forceful religious teachings. The fabulous 
wealth of India before she was robbed was a product of the 
persistent industry of these people. Then we must remember 
that such energetic leaders as Chandragupta, Shiva ji and 
Madhji Scindya were not men of the so-called pure Aryan 
blood. ^ The Indian Rayat by whom the Dravidians are repre- 
sented today have stood the test of centuries of adverse climatic 
environment and have survived a condition of anarchy and 
misrule for a period of over ten centuries since the first Moham- 
medan invasion and have proved their economic efficiency dur- 
ing the severe conditions of this tr3'ing period. 

In the second place the mixture of the various racial stocks 
in India so far as it has already gone has proved a success and 
warrants us in further stimulating that process. It has created 
no degenerate hybrid products, as many scholars of ethnology 
would have us believe. In Bengal we have (in some families) 
about the best illustrations of what is likely to happen if the yel- 
low Mongolian, the white Aryan and the dark Dravidian are 
mixed and the result is not one to be despised. A Bengali of 
this type is not only an intelligent, but a very handsome person. 

In the third place, in the agile and active Maratha and Parsi, 
the sturdy Sikh and Mohammedan, the intelligent Bengali 
and the persevering and patient Madrasi we have all the ele- 

by Professor H. E. Jordan of the University of Virginia, "The Mulatto 
to save the Negro," in the Literary Digest, vol. 46, p. 1373 ; and also 
ibid., "Awrakening of the Brahmin," p. 1383 f. Professor Jordan thinks 
that the half-breed is usually a better and more useful citizen than the 
man of pure race. "The mulatto," says Professor Jordan, "is the 
leaven with which to lift the negro race." 

'I base this statement on the fact that both Shivaji and Madhji 
Scindya belonged to the Maratha Kunbi Caste, a dominantly Dravidian 
tribe in their present physical appearance. For. low origin of 
Chandragupta on the mother's side, although on his father's side of the 
raja class, see Vincent Smith's Early History of India, p. no. 



70 

ments in India for the formation of a population that will result 
in an unrivaled race composition for the purpose of exploiting 
the economic resources of our warm country. In spite of this, 
if there are some who still doubt the worth of the native Indian 
stocks, they could freely import foreign blood by intermarriage 
with the Europeans and the Mongolian Asiatics. 

In its effect on the political life of the people of India, the 
Indo-Aryan culture represents its second evil influence. Prior 
to the coming of Aryans into India the Dravidian political evo- 
lution was proceeding along normal lines. They had developed 
manorial and feudal institutions not greatly dissimilar to those 
developed by Western races in Europe. We also find that the 
Aryans themselves came to India with quasi-republican institu- 
tions.* The Rig Veda speaks of the nomination and election of 
kings and chiefs and we find that matters of public interest were 
discussed in assemblies^ somewhat similar to the folk-moots of 
the early settlers in Massachusetts. These splendid beginnings 
under Aryan influence lapsed into a state of political disassocia- 
tion that left in India thousands of principalities existing side by 
side without either much friction or co-operation and exercising 
over their subjects a sort of paternal despotism. From the quasi- 
republican institutions of the Aryans and the centralized polity 
of the Dravidians to the decentralized condition of innumerable 
petty states was a change for which Brahmanism and the 
Brahmanical philosophy of life were alone responsible. This 
condition created in India a fertile field for political exploitation. 
Every student of the history of India knows well that this fact 
was not lost sight of by their foreign neighbors and we know 
how for lack of co-operation these petty kingdoms were ulti- 
mately swallowed one by one by the British conquerors 
eventually bringing the entire country under their control. The 
conquest of Alexander brought into India the very first forces 
of political and social disintegration.® Under the influence of 
this stimulus and that of the succeeding Greek and Scythian 
invasions some progress was made in developing political organ- 
ization. The famous dynasties of Chandragupta and others were 
formed, but the pressure being removed India again fell into 
her spiritual slumber. 

*Zimmer: Alt-indisches Leben, pp. 172-174. 
°Foy : Konigliche Gewalt, chap. II. 

'Smith, Vincent A. : Early History of India — is at present the most 
reliable work on the earlier period of Indian History, p. 102 et seq. 



Once more we find in the Indian political history a period of 
quiescence from the third century to the eleventh century A. D. 
when the first epoch making Mohammedan invasion took place. 
Now began to enter into India powerful forces of disintegration 
and they kept continually coming until finally the British people 
established their powerful and stable government for the 
entire territory and brought in a peaceful regime. From the 
first Mohammedan invasion to the final achievements of the 
British people in India was a period of over one thousand years 
— a period of anarchy and misrule (with only temporary inter- 
vals of stability under Mohammedan rule) during which the peo- 
ple were harassed and misgoverned by their successive temporary 
masters who, conscious of their precarious position, robbed them 
as much as they could. During this period of exploitation the 
foreign invaders were not the only tools of molestation of the 
people. After these outside forces began to shake the founda- 
tions of the Indo-Aryan social order, the Indian raja as well as 
the Brahman became nervous as to the stability of his in- 
terests. It was during this period of demoralization, more than 
before, that we find the Indian raja employing extraordinary 
means to strengthen his treasury in order to protect his 
kingdom. We now find him harassing his subjects by heavy 
taxes and capricious rule. Political stability and peace, the basic 
foundations of their religious, industrial and social order, were 
now jeopardized and they fully realized this. The foreign in- 
vasions came as a complete surprise to them, and their belief in 
the efficacy of sacrifices as a means of protecting their king- 
doms and furnishing a panacea for all evils was suddenly 
shaken. It was in short a period of readjustment. 

It is not fair to compare their administration of this period 
with that of Englishmen in a period of settled rule. Even 
some of our own scholars in their efifusive praise of 
British rule are very fond of contrasting'^ its blessings 
of peace and moderate taxes with this state of maladminis- 
tration. They vehemently condemn those who mourn the 
loss of that native misrule. Such errors are an inevitable re- 
sult of a study of isolated chapters of the history of any people. 
These enthusiasts for the British rule fail to see that there were 
deeper forces than those of mere native maladministration that 

'Of this type are studies like those of Mr. C. Hayavadan Rao, pub- 
lished in Indian Antiquary, Vol. 40, pp. 265 and 2S1. Also Mr. Hop- 
kins' India Old and New, see chapter on Famines. 



^2 

brought about the estabHshment of British rule in India. Thus 
we reconcile the two opposite descriptions of the native rule in 
India — the one painting it as a happy and prosperous regime and 
the other condemning it on account of its anarchy. These two 
aspects represent two different periods in the history of Indo- 
Aryan people and we should be cautious before we indulge in 
vehement condemnation of our own ancestors and in enthusias- 
tic praise of our present rulers, or vice versa. The mean lies 
somewhere between these two extremes. 

It was during this period of demoralization that the Brah- 
man began to exploit his recognized superiority for financial 
- gains. A system of spiritual hierarchy, which began in all 
earnestness for the betterment and salvation of humanity, de- 
generated into a cunning and dishonest scheme of exploitation. 
The king and other castes were now commanded to support the 
Brahman and to serve his interest in every respect. The 
Sanskrit literature of the later period gives us plentiful 
\ evidence for the many devices which the Brahmans under 
\ the garb of religious necessities had invented to exploit the 
V.„other castes. The prince must now protect him even from 
the consequences of his crimes. The Vaishya must sup- 
port him and the Qudra must meekly serve him. Caste now 
meant privilege and discrimination — privilege for the higher 
castes and discrimination against the lower castes. This applied 
in all walks of life, religious, social and political, and the Brah- 
man as the author of this scheme reserved for himself the cream 
of everything. Therefore we should not condemn the Brah- 
\ manical tyranny without correctly understanding the underlying 
\ forces. A period of political readjustment is necessarily a 
period of anarchy, misrule, and misery and we should be thank- 
ful that it is at least temporarily ended, even though with the 
result that we find ourselves under a foreign rule. We badly 
needed the peace which England has granted us and should not 
much grumble at the cost at which we got it or are getting it 
now. We need this peaceful regime to efifect thoroughgoing 
changes in our existing social and economic order and to 
make preparation for a stage of higher political reconstruction. 
Just at present, considering the momentous work of social re- 
organization before us, we need no violent political changes nor 
another period of political disorganization. Our main task along 
political lines now lies, it seems to me, in gradually getting more 



73 

political privileges that will give our ambitious young men a 
freer scope for the development of their higher capacities along 
these Hnes, watching the present administration and seeing to 
it that it does not take any steps unfavorable to the develop- 
ment of our social and economic platforms and bringing proper 
pressure upon it to enact legislation that will facilitate our work 
of reconstruction. Against the British administration as such, if 
it shows a disposition to sympathize with our programs of recon- 
struction and helps us in that work, we have no reason to grum- 
ble simply because it happens to be a foreign administration. 
But if it shows a disposition inimical towards our hopes of 
political independence and economic prosperity, it will not only 
bring a regime of discontent, but endanger its very existence, 
if not at the hands of its emasculated subjects, then at the hands 
of some foreign enemy. Fortunately, thus far England has 
shown no hostile disposition towards our aspirations for 
greater political privileges, and let us hope that with a greater 
knowledge of our needs and capacities she will take a more 
genuine interest in our affairs and grant more privileges that 
will enable us to exercise our higher political instincts. 

In its unfavorable effects on the economic prosperity of the 
people of India we find the third evil consequence of the Indo- 
Aryan culture. In this case its influence worked both directly 
and indirectly. The Brahmanical law looked down on economic \ 
pursuits and extolled the virtues of the study of the Vedas and ' 
the profession of a priest. They prescribed the proper occupa- 
tions for each of the four castes and for many of the 
mixed castes. This was only following the general direc- 
tion of their mental stream. However, the will to live 
and enjoy life was stronger with the masses than a de- 
sire to renounce the worldly life, and under circumstances 
of pressure the rules as to the gaining of livelihood 
were freely violated. A Brahman for instance was al- 
lowed almost free scope in his economic activities when 
necessity called for such a departure from settled custom. The 
people kept up their usual toil in productive activities, though 
not under the leadership of capable entrepreneurs, for we know 
that their creative activities were so to speak atrophied, their at- 
tention being turned away from the gains of this life to the bliss 
of heaven. Even in the absence of powerful entrepreneurs in 
the field of economic activity, the Indo-Aryan regime of peace 



74 

and the easy conditions of life gave opportunities for 
accumulating a greater part of whatever wealth had been 
created by the persistent efforts of these lesser entrepreneurs 
and economic agents. The fabulous wealth of India was a 
product of the gradual savings of this period of centuries of 
peace. Unfortunately these riches were protected by a flimsy 
political fabric and it suffered the fate of a ship which sank with 
the very weight of gold in it. It was the fabulous wealth of 
India that invited to her door the ruinous foreign invasions and 
brought up on her a condition of anarchy and misrule extending 
over a period of a thousand years. And it is to the credit of the 
population of India that it has stood this test and survived in- 
tact for the work of future reconstruction. The Indian peasant 
and merchant of today are as patiently industrious and efficient 
as they have been at any time. Our chief work now along the 
line of economic reconstruction lies in the creation of an entre- 
preneur class that will start enterprises to exploit the natural 
and commercial resources of our country and, with renewed 
vigor, once again set the industrial wheel in motion, and of 
an intelligent labor class that will efficiently co-operate with 
these entrepreneurs in the work of production. This is the 
third plank of our platform of reconstruction in India. 

On methods and means one can better act than speak, and 
what I shall say now will be merely for the sake of completing 
this study. After a careful analysis of the past and present of 
India's life one cannot help feeling the overwhelming neces- 
sity of a widespread system of elementary and secondary public 
education that will offer a uniform training to every child in 
India, giving it a common background of life with every other 
child in the country. An efficient and widespread system of 
public schools, where not only reading and writing are taught, 
but the pupils are encouraged in an inquiring attitude towards 
life and are given an intelligent understanding of their economic 
and political position in the eyes of the world, would constitute 
the best melting pot of the Indian prejudices and a birth-place 
of the Indian national life. Unfortunately our present educa- 
tional facilities are very inadequate, especially in the most im- 
portant matter of rudimentary education. The present sys- 
tem is very defective in that it does not reach the masses 
effectively. Moreover, in a country where masses are buried in 
ignorance a policy of laisser faire as regards the school at- 



75 

tendance of children is likely to be very ruinous.^ And we must 
compel each child to accept at least the benefits of reading and 
writing through which we can train them for a change in their 
present attitude and admit them into the atmosphere of our 
"new spirit." We see the need of normal schools for the proper 
training of intellectual leaders, a system of public lectures, and 
press campaigns under vigorous and sound leadership, and many 
other social and club activities that have played such important 
roles in the reconstruction of other nations — all these can be 
counted upon to contribute to the common end. 

As to the means, the most powerful single agency that stands 
in a position to play the title role in this epoch-making drama 
of our program is the Government of India. At the stage of 
evolution where India now stands a paternal despotism is essen- 
tial. If the Government of India means well and has honest 
intentions, then in co-operation with the present administration 
we can bring about epoch-making changes in the existing social 
order in our country and speedily carry out our program of 
reconstruction. A favorable attitude of the government will 
of course make us sooner qualified to assume our own political 
responsibilities. But what boots it even if Great Britain is 
eventually totally separated from India? Is it not better for 
the progress of humanity as a whole that such a change should 
occur? Even from a more selfish point of view will not Eng- 
land profit more in the end by her commercial relations with a 
prosperous and politically independent India than from a 
half-starved and discontented politically subjected population? 
A free unfolding of the national life and an active foreign rule 
become mutually incompatible. But even with England's most 
liberal policy in matters of education and the granting of 
political privileges, the day for a complete separation seems so 
far off that let us hope that when the time comes for momentous 
changes in the political afifairs of India the high sense of honor 
of the British people will again assert itself as it has done in the 
past and we shall be able to accomplish a silent revolution in 
keeping with the humanitarian stamina of our civilization. 

Whether the government is sympathetic or unsympathetic, 
interested or uninterested, and active or inactive along the lines 
of our work of reconstruction, we must do our proper share. 

*It is gratifying to note in this connection that the native state of 
Baroda has taken a lead in this direction and has introduced a 
system of free and compulsory elementary education. 



76 

Private enterprise can accomplish a great deal. The Indian 
National Congress should be reorganized and created into a body 
critical as well as constructive with a provisional government and 
with powers to collect voluntary assessments from the people 
for educational purposes and a permanent central treasury to 
disburse funds to the agents according to the needs of various 
provinces and localities. The press should undertake to edu- 
cate public opinion within the country and abroad as regards 
the course of Indian affairs and to create an interest in the public 
mind in current problems. Young men from the various uni- 
versities should hold annual conferences where they can become 
acquainted and where they can discuss questions of social re- 
form. 

We should duly appreciate and heartily co-operate with the 
various foreign missions that are doing so much good in our 
country and helping us in our work. We should have a kindly 
appreciation of the efforts of a foreign missionary who leaves 
his country and his home and consecrates his life to the better- 
ment of humanity. In view of the work he is doing, we can tol- 
erate the little narrowness that missionaries sometimes exhibit. 
When the foreign missionary christianizes the so-called un- 
touchable classes in India he is performing a valuable service 
not only to our country, but to humanity. He is lightening our 
work of creating a national life by eliminating unnecessary dis- 
similarities and differences. We must frankly admit that we 
ourselves have shown no disposition until now to engage in this 
kind of work. As to his changing the religion of these lower 
classes he is certainly replacing a custom-ridden and ignorant 
attitude of mind by a more liberal faith. Moreover, in the 
future life of our country it is best that religion should be left 
to the individual as a matter of private judgment and should 
not be allowed to interfere in co-operative public activities. 

Not only in India, but outside of our country, there are 
forces which we can utilize to advantage. The world as a whole 
stands today on a higher ethical level than ever before. By 
educating European and American public opinion as to the prob- 
lems and needs of our country we can get much in the way of 
that moral support which, now that the world has become one by 
means of transportation and communication, is bound to play a 
more and more important part in guiding the conduct of political 
and social activities everywhere. The government of any civil- 



77 

ized country today will hesitate to pass or defeat a bill in the 
face of adverse comment of the international press and notes 
from foreign governments recording their disapproval. Even 
from the selfish point of view of economic gain, the interests 
of India, we may convince the world, are the interests of 
humanity at large.. The limits of economic society today have 
no horizon, and without boundaries they embrace the entire 
world. Wall Street feels the pulse of economic progress in the 
remotest parts of the world. The wheat crop of Russia and the 
cotton crop of India are registered on the tickers of the Wall 
Street and Lombard Street exchanges and the bourses of Paris, 
Berlin and other important cities. The economic efficiency of 
the Indian Rayat and the Russian peasant is eventually to be 
reflected in the values of the world's markets. Is it not then a 
concern to humanity as a whole that the people of India should 
be prosperous and politically independent? Can the world as 
a whole make progress with misery or misconduct in its train? 
The work of reconstruction once completed in India, she will 
represent a powerful, progressive, and humanizing force and 
render special services in the interest of humanity. India is the 
only country where the dark Dravidian, the white Aryan, and 
the yellow Mongolian, the principal stocks of humanity, are 
mixed to advantage and are bound to mix still further as time 
goes on. Here only we find a trained and an efficient army 
well qualified for the exploitation of the economic resources of 
either warm or cold regions. It is here that we shall first see 
humanity en bloc, including all the world races in one family, 
and, above all, it is here that we find humanitarianism, sym- 
pathy, and peaceful disposition forming the dominant note of 
the character of the people. Unfortunately in their eagerness 
for a speedy political and economic reconstruction some of our 
leaders have shown a disposition to bring about the changes 
rapidly at the sacrifice of our past and most precious heritage. 
Let us hope that in our enthusiasm for reconstruction we do 
not lose this splendid possession of the human element in 
civilization which is unique with us and of which every one of 
us may well be proud. 

Finis 



SOME ORIGINAL AND SECONDARY SOURCES FOR A 
STUDY OF THE INDO-ARYAN MENTAL EVOLU- 
TION AND ITS POLITICAL AND ECO- 
NOMIC CONSEQUENCES. 

Rig Veda. 

Metrical English Translation by Ralph T. H. Griffith, Vols. 1-2 

— Benares, 1896-7. 
Translation begun by H. H. Wilson, Vols. 1-3 (1850-57) com- 
pleted by Cowell, Vols. 4-6 (1866-88) ; this translation is based 
upon commentary of Sanyana. 
Max Mitller's critical translation of some select hymns. Sacred 

Books of the East., Vol. 32 — Oxford, 1891. 
Hermann Oldenberg's translation of some hymns to Agni in 
Mandala, 1-5, S. B. E. Vol. 4^0xford, 1897. 
Yajur Veda. 
Atharva Veda. 

W. D. Whitney's translation with critical commentary revised and 
brought nearer to completion by C. R. Lanman, Vols. 1-2 — 
Cambridge, Mass., 1905. 
M. Bloomfield's translation S. B. E. Vol. 42— Oxford, 1897. 
R. T. H. Griffith's translation. Vols. 1-2 — Benares, 1895-6. 
Qatapatha Brahmana. 

Eggeling's translation in S. B. E. Vols. 12, 26, 41, 43, 44. 
Grihya Sutras. 

Oldenberg's translations of some select Sutras in S. B. E. Vols. 
29 and 30. 
Upanishads. 

Max Mitller's translation of some select Upanishads in S. B. E. 
Vols. I and 15. 
Vedanta Philosophy. 

K. T. Telang's translation of Bhagavadgita in S. B. E. Vol. 8. 
Dharmashastra. 

Sacred Law writings of Apasthamba, Gautama, Vishnu, Vasistha, 
Baudhayana, Manu, Narada and Brihaspati, translated by vari- 
ous Oriental Scholars in S. B. E. Vols. 2, 14, 17, 25, and 33- 
Mahabharata. 

P. C. Roy's translation. Vols. i-i8--C'alcutta,_ 1883-1895. See espe- 
cially Rajadharmanuqacanaparva in Qanti Parva. 
Buddhism. 

Max Miiller's translation of Buddhacharita and Dhammapada, m 

S. B. E. Vols. 10 and 49. 
Rhys David's translation of Buddhist Suttas and other Buddhistic 
texts in S. B. E. Vols, n, 13, i7> 20, 35 and 36. 
Chanakya. 

Shamashastry's translation of Arthashastra has appeared partly in 
Indian Antiquary, Vols. 34, 38 and 39 and partly in Alysore 
Review in 1908. 



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79 

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8o 

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SOME PERIODICALS CONTRIBUTING TO INDO-ARYAN 
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VITA 

The author of this study, a Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu 
Maratha, was born at Khutal, a small country place near Bom- 
bay, India, on December 7th, 1883. His early training both in 
the vernacular and in English was entrusted to the care of pri- 
vate tutors under his parental roof. Prepared at Thana High 
School, a district public school, and matriculated at Bombay 
University in 1902. 

Studied at Wilson College, Bombay, during the years 
1903 and 1904. Completed undergraduate work at Cornell 
University for A. B. in June of 1908, which institution 
he had entered in October of 1905. Entered Columbia Uni- 
versity in the Fall of 1908 and received the Degree of Master 
of Arts in June, 1909, under the Faculty of Political Science. 
Completed residence requirements for Ph. D. in June, 19 10, re- 
turning to complete the work for that degree in September, 
1912. At Cornell University he studied under Professors Will- 
cox, Jenks, Fetter and Titchner. At Columbia University he 
attended the lectures of Professors Seligman, Clark, Seager and 
Giddings, and the seminars of Professors Seligman, Clark and 
Seager. During 19 12- 13 he held a Fellowship in Political 
Economy at Columbia University. 



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